<i>The Sky From</i> <i>Our Backyard</i>
Benjamin Hayes
+
  • Benjamin Hayes 0

The Sky From Our Backyard

Note: this camera is still in the experimental stages, namely testing out the software/hardware configuration and how to stream to this website. There is a couple of problems you may immediately note in the above images. First of all, the color balance seems to shift from daylight to an odd purple tone frequently during the day. I suspect that the gain and exposure settings are throwing off the software. Secondly, the camera and lens are not situated correctly. Namely, the lens is not fisheye (360) and oriented vertically toward the zenith. As a result, if you hit the constellation button, the constellation map will be incorrect.
All Sky Camera
I am currently building an all-sky camera to provide me both real-time and time-lapse views of the sky from my backyard. While I test the camera, lens, and software configurations, the setup is super-simple - a ZWO ASI224MC camera with ZWO 14mm lens that is connected via a USB3 cable to a Raspberry Pi3 running Thomas Aquinas' all-sky capture software. The software captures images every minute and store them on a microSD card. Once a day, a cron script in the software posts these images to this website so I (and you) can view them, both real time and previous conditions for the past several days.

The free software and instructions on how to build the camera are available on GitHub. It is relatively easy to setup and use, change parameters. It has a number of cool features, including the ability save images of the sky at set intervals (mine are currently set at every minute) and at the end of the day, the software generates a time lapse video from those images. It also generates a keogram.
Stacks Image 37
All sky camera (testing phase - not weatherproof) consisting of ASI224MC camera on tripod with wide-angle CCT lens and dew heater.