Upgrading my All Sky Camera

Over the last 8 months, I have been slowly making changes and upgrading my all sky camera. I routed cat 6 internet from my garage to the attic, upgraded from a laptop to a mini-pc, added a powered USB hub, added passive & active cooling, and changed the acrylic dome. I'm also upgrading to 1 gig internet in a few days.
With only a few months to go before the end of the one year timelapse, I figured I'd share what I've been up to.
Check out my video on how to build one if you are interested in this type of thing!
Hope you enjoy.
#allskycamera #stargazing #upgrade #astronomy #astrophotography

[@mrtransistor6173]

I'm interested in building an all sky camera. But I'll probably use a glass done rather than a plastic one. Also, maybe a cooled astro camera will be better(?)

[@HelberPontes]

Great video, thank you. Do you have instructions for the software setup? I couldn't have it done with OBS-Studio. 😞

[@normanrevere]

Thanks! It should be mostly plug and play with the camera. You will probably need to download drivers from ZWO’s website if you’re using an ASI camera. If your computer recognizes the camera OBS should too. The only reason I use OBS is so I can stream the feed as well as all the other widgets & music I’ve got on there, but if you’re not streaming I wouldn’t use OBS. There are plenty of options out there now for just recording that are better than OBS. AllSkyeye is one that comes to mind, I think there’s also another one called Lumisky that is coming out soon. If you’re dead set on OBS though, there are a lot of different ways to set that up. I tinker with it all the time to optimize quality & file size. I’m actually going to look into changing how I do it, I’d still use OBS for the stream but I want to save the images in a separate format than recording via OBS. When I figure that out I’ll make a video on that as well :)

[@HelberPontes]

@@normanrevere Norman, thank you so much for your reply. I will give another try to ZWO + OBS

[@smassky]

Pretty cool! Attics are no fun lol especially with the nails from the roof. I want to eventually set one up to suppliment my normal live streams. And to provide views when i cant setup my telescope. It would be nice to share with the community im slowly building.

[@normanrevere]

Thanks man. Its by far the worst part of this whole thing for me, thankfully I don't have to do it often. I don't really have anywhere to set up my imaging scope, and the one spot I could is bathed by a streetlight. I might try again at some point though. The all sky camera definitely scratches the itch though. I honestly really enjoy watching things change over the months, like the position of the Moon, the Sun, and planets. Its also been interesting to see how the constellations shift too. Its going to be interesting trying to figure out a way to display an entire year without it going by too fast or having the timelapse be too long. I'll probably upload a few different versions.

[@smassky]

@normanrevere yeah, hmmm that would be a problem. I suppose you could put it all into one large file, then adjust the whole thing and see how it works. Or Maybe into different seasons. 🤔 I've got a pretty narrow patch of sky that works for me. Atleast for the sun. The moon gets too low and is behind trees now. All the good summer DSO aren't available where I setup. Occasionally I'll have to move my scope when switching from looking at the sun to the moon or other objects. I'm considering taking the mount of the tripod and building a custom mount in an enclosure or a sort of mini observatory. Mayne eventually automate it so if it starts raining it'll shut down and close it's self lol. But that's a more long term project

[@acoushi4145]

thats cool!!

[@wjlambert]

watching you struggle through you attic is enough to make me want to pay someone else to install conduit. But access to my roof is a lil easier (and more spacious). is it realistically possible to use a Glass dome with 70% Ceramic coating?

[@normanrevere]

@@wjlambert Yeah it’s probably the worst aspect of it all. I could have set the cam up further on the roof, but I wanted to have easy access from the outside and not drill any holes through the roof itself. A glass dome would probably work, I think the biggest thing is making sure it’s not too optically distorted. The acrylic works well and doesn’t have too much distortion. Not enough to make a huge difference anyway. Probably a lot cheaper too.