How to build your own All Sky Camera

Ive been working on this project for nearly half a year on and off, experimenting with different setups and softwares and streaming most of it live here on YouTube. There seems to be a lot of interest from various people so I put together a quick video on how you can build one too.

I had a ton of fun making this thing! Its awesome to see the results so far.

What I used to build my all-sky camera:

ZWO ASI678MC

D21 UV-IR Cut Filter (Optional)

JMX Acrylic - 4in x 2.4in Acrylic Dome

USB 3.0 Right angle cable

Set of cable glands

USB 3.0 hub
Edit: I ended up getting a powered USB hub.

Project box

Dew Heater strap

You may also need:

Machine screws
Piece of metal or dovetail to hold the camera
Silicone sealant
Hole saw + Drill
USB Cables of varying sizes, if you need one longer than a few feet get a powered cable.
A laptop, mini-pc, or Raspberry Pi

#live #livestream #livestreaming #night #sky #tonight #stargazing #nightsky #earthcam #livehd #diy #diyprojects #diyelectronics #raspberrypi #minipc

[_mysilentblue]

The dome: Get some Turtle Wax 53477 Hybrid Solutions Pro Flex Wax, Graphene Spray Wax. It will protect it from the elements and the water will bead up and roll of, the wind and rain will most likely make it self cleaning to some extent. Cool little project.

[trevorworrall]

What Lens is it, you have everything listed but that ;-)

[midclock]

I'm seeing many projects like this using a dome to protect the camera.
I'm also thinking about building a similar project, but I'm concerned about the protectiong getting dirty with time, the air here is not very clean, and probably some particles will deposit over the glass in a month or two.

This is why I'm thinking about a flat glass protection instead of a dome, which maybe I can clean with some kind of electric wiper.

The place where I'm going to install the camera is not very easy to reach, so I'd prefer to avoid to go there if not really necessary.

Any ideas?

[GrowingAnswers]

Id like to know how long your usb cable is. I am building another allsky cam myself and considering keeping to pi5 in the house instead of all in one box outside. I was a hardcore astrophotographer myself for a while until I retired the hobby to more simple things. I also use an Allsky7 meteor system which is pretty cool. I am concerned with running my pi5 along with the camera in the same housing because of heat issues and then over-engineering cooling systems along with automated dew heater control. I like you idea of just housing the camera outside. So my 2 questions are... Is your dew heater always on or if not, how is it triggered? And how do you extend your usb, just a powered hub?

[aldopaiva]

Hello, I also set up an All Sky, PI4 + ASI120MC-S, unfortunelly, I have the problem ASI_ERROR_TIMEOUT, please, can you share the Allsky WebUI Setup that you used ? Thanks in Advance!!

[whotookmymojo]

Hello can you please share the links for the small cooling fan, the metal fins and bracket? Thanks

[cosmicshadow]

Any thoughts on how you chose which camera? Looking at the ZWO ASI678MC, ZWO ASI676MC, and the ZWO ASI715MC, but in this use case I'm not 100% sure what stats really matter. The 715 is a lot cheaper and has smaller pixels and a good resolution, but not sure if the lower full well and read noise will counter act or matter in this case.

[lelandclayton]

Looking at the specs of the camera it's very similar to a few CCTV cameras I use at work.The cameras I have in mind however only do 30FPS and I would have to disable the IR and white spot light. Kinda tempted to try it and use a UV-IR cut filter.

[grucha]

Thanks for this, especially the parts list. Awesome result!

[jasonpierce]

so how do folks keep birds from standing or crapping on these camera domes?

[RobertQuinlan-ss]

Hello and good day, Its good to see a person build something and take the time to show you how to build it and what works and point out what not to do. that will cause problems down the road. Keep up the good works. RTQ

[andrewpoison]

Like it! But I wonder: how long is the sensor going to last when operated 24/7 - especially under daylight and with the sun focus for hours and hours onto the sensor. Just as human eyes, sensors usually don't like sunlight hitting them for more than a split second. And since it is actually a camera designed for the evening/night ... hmmm.

I see on your video that it seems to work well right now, I'm just wondering if you need to buy a new cam every 6 months or so because it starts "burning up".

[deankos]

Hiya, nice job, does the camera adjust its exposures for day and night automatically? Or is it the software that’s doing it ?…… I have a real problem with mine dewing up, currently experimenting with dew bands etc to try get it right……

[Oamaruastro]

This is very helpful--I'm setting one of these up myself. The part I'm having trouble with is how to stream it to a website. Do you have tips on that?

[richardbrenner]

Hi. I am researching how to build my own. Is there anything you would do differently?

[marvinwhisman]

I probably missed it, but what software are you using with this.

[JamesPezzella]

Great work!!! I bought a Bloomsky weather station a few years ago that took periodic images of the sky and stiched them together into a daily timelapse. It was solar powered and WiFi enabled so it was easy to run. Unfortunately the company that launched is is out of business. So while I still get weather updates and the occasional sky image - it's all but dead.

[RetiredFE]

Just curious, do you use a raspberry pi, or are you just using a cord from the camera to a computer using sharpcap? Thanks, really liked this video....

[STARFM]

What software you used to capture the images, the day to night and night to day transition are smooth!

[jasonpatterson]

Cool project. It's nice that in spite of light pollution you're still able to see the Milky Way clearly in this as well as a hint of Andromeda. I've seen several of these that use an acrylic dome and I keep wondering why they don't use a flat piece of acrylic instead, with the camera all the way in the box. I realize that it would be a tight fit with a fisheye lens and that someone must have tried it and failed, just not seeing what the problem would wind up being.