Which equipment (camera) to record your scope during the whole night ?

Hi,

I am looking for a camera to record my scope while shooting the whole night. Currently, to monitor it remotely, I have a reolink - but this latter isn't really fit to have high quality recording - offering only black and white footage.

Does anyone has something to recommend ?

Thanks,
Aygen

Assuming you're asking for a home based monitoring solution, not something that is mobile, I'd say look at the Wyze Outdoor camera. I got one with a solar panel and it's setup in the corner of my yard on the fence and has a view of pretty much everything. I'll have to see how it does out in the weather. Thinking about putting a rain shield over it, some thin plastic such as from a 2L soda bottle.

I currently use an old DMK camera only VGA resolution b&w but works well, but you might consider the Raspberry Pi camera which is colour and with a RPi circuit board has Wi-Fi and powered by USB a fairly cheap option.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/camera.html

Thank you ! Will have a look at it.

I assume you want to get a time lapse or something of the scope over the course of the night? Or you are looking for something to watch your scope realtime?

I got one of these so I could just watch realtime https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088QWZ1P2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1It's usb2 connection so I just plug it in and view it using the native windows camera app.

If you want something recorded, you could probably use the same method for the all-sky camera without the fisheye lens?

If you don't care about the cost, maybe a standard ring camera would work? (and set it only to record the motion events like slewing, etc)

We use Blink cameras to monitor our home, and they might work for your application. They are inexpensive and can be turned on and off when you want to check something (via wifi). Like any other IR camera for dark areas, they are BW. They are battery-powered (last months) and easy to install. If you are using them for security, they can turn on with motion and alert you via your phone. Amazon has sales prices periodically which can provide a 50% discount.

George Hatfield

Thanks all ! I should have been more accurate in my request.

As correctly suggested by @Nick Grundy, what I need is a colored camera which will allow me to do time lapse (record the movement of the scope, respectively the night sky). Therefore, I am ruling out traditional security camera.

Meanwhile, I was suggested to have a look at “spencer camera”. Will see.

I think this might a be a good option https://patriotastro.com/all-sky-archive/

I went through the youtube of this all-sky build. It was fairly simple and most of all, easy to access the time lapse video at the end of the night. (i want the lazy version)

I've run this before with an ASI585mc + fisheye lens and the capture looked good. In your case, you could just place it so the scope+mount are in the foreground?

Thank you Nick, might be indeed an excellent solution. I could built one quite "easily". Very good idea.

I use Reolink 5MP and 8MP and they work fine for my purposes. With lights out, you won't get a color image from any camera, just guessing here. The benefits I find with Reolink and monitoring my scopes while I sleep: PTZ with follow (I have two that have a programmed PTZ route), turn on a camera based light when a person is detected with auto switch to color as an option, turn on a camera based siren when a person is detected, camera based speaker and microphone. Also, one PTZ camera that monitors my scopes is 5X optical zoom, while another is a dual PTZ camera with one of them being zoom and the other being wide field.

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