All Sky Cam: Scheduled Recording

[Al.Grant]

13 hours ago, Graham said:

 

Trying to get my ASI120 to work with I SPY without success .

Tried downloading the 32 bit version but still no joy.

Where did you get the 32 bit drivers from.

Hi Graham,

Sorry I have absolutely no idea!

I don't even have that laptop anymore, however, seeing this thread again makes me think I should give this another go.

I'm going to download iSpy and the latest ASI drivers and see if I can get it to see my 120mm - I'll let you know if I get it working (might get a chance to try it tomorrow)

 

Al

 

[+Graham]

Got it sorted last night. 

You need the direct show driver to get ispy to see the asi120. 

 

[Al.Grant]

Nice .....

I want to get this working so I can run a camera overnight when we're over in Snowdonia with some really dark skies combined with minimal aircraft overhead.

At home we've got horrible light pollution and get lots of aircraft either in transit or on approach to E Mids airport.

 

Don't know if you've seen it but there is a Meteor Tracker plug-n for iSpy - it costs $25 and I don't know if it works with an ASI, but there is a 30 day free trial so nothing really to lose by giving it a go.

http://www.iplugs.eu/pl_meteor.html

 

 

[Al.Grant]

Gave iSpy a quick try on my main laptop and with that DirectShow driver it picks up my ASI120mm straight away.

Now I know it all works I'll have a try with my travel laptop and then will need to look out the enclosure I made for the 120mm.

I know where most of it is but I might build a new one with a better dome and will need to look again at a dew heater for it.

 

It'll be nice to try capture a few meteors when we're away between Xmas and New Year. 

 

 

 

** I've just had a look through a cupboard in the back room and got depressed at how much astro gear is sitting in there not being used! ☹️

 

 

 

[+Graham]

If you seal the camera in the dome the heat off the camera might be enough.

 

I am using a heated CCTV housing for mine.

Edited December 3, 2019 by Graham

[Al.Grant]

I'll give it a run without any heating but if I remember correctly last time I got an issue with dew.

Won't be an issue to add a usb powered heater to the enclosure and that should be enough.

[Al.Grant]

After having to reinstall Win10 on the laptop I'm going to use for my all sky camera (failed Win10 update 🤬) I spent  the last couple of days looking at setting the camera up using my old ASI120mm.

 

I have iSpy and with the right drivers it sees the camera, however, I found some different software that looked really interesting so I decided to tgive that a try!

The software is AllSkEYE (it's free) and although I've only been looking at it for a little while I think I'll be sticking with it.

 

I find it more suited to the job than iSpy but that's probably because it has been designed for use in all sky imaging and as such has far more features than more generic cctv software. 

It has native support for ZWO , Altair and Starlight Express cameras (also ASCOM support) so there was no issue at all with it seeing my 120mm and getting it up and running in a basic form.

 

There are comment on their forum where people with older model 120mm's have had some issues and the dev has contacted ZWO who have said they know about them and it's not going to be fixed as the older ASI120's are not longer supported.  I've not had any issues and I'm using an old laptop with USB2 and a Lindy 12m usb hub.

 

I wouldn't exactly desicribe it as plug & play but it doesn't take much to get basic capture and comversion running. 

There are lots of options beyond the basic capture and although most are not difficult to understand I did initially struggle to find the correct option in the settings ....  however now it makes far more sense  - - - probably just getting used to something new! - - - reading the manual/help files might also have helped 🙂  I'm still not quite there on the auto-exposure settings.

 

I've given it a couple of trial runs and it seems to work pretty well, athough I've not yet had it outside all night due to my old enclosure being damaged.  I'm hoping to give it a full run over the next couple of nights.  

 

This was a quick image from early last night when I was testing the 12m usb cable and also the overlays.

I wanted to try get the camera in focus but cloud and the moon didn't help much.

 

 

Al