Cool Stuff by Dan Judd N7QXB

The link above is to my Smugmug Photo Gallery
Indi-Allsky was created by Aaron Morris
Setup is a Raspberry Pi4 and RPI HQ Camera with 1.55mm CS lens
Allsky was created by AllskyTeam
Setup is a Raspberry Pi3b and a ZWO 120mm camera with a 1.55mm CS lens
Allsky Camera Build
Allsky Camera Build Posted on 12/29/2024 11:52 PM
Back in 2021 I built my first allsky camera. Thomas Jacquin was the original creator and I followed his plans for construction and programming on Github. It has worked flawlessly for nearly 4 years. I did add a dew heater to keep the dew and the frost off the dome. The only thing I did not like was that it was difficult to focus the lens with the way things were assembled.
Perseid Fireball
Perseid Fireball Posted on 12/29/2024 11:57 PM
This is one of the things that an Allsky Camera is good for. This fireball was captured during the Perseid Meteor Shower on 8/11/21.
StarLink Train
StarLink Train Posted on 12/30/2024 08:08 AM
This simple animation was created with a few frames captured by the Allsky Camera. It shows a train of about 20 StarLink satellites. This was back in May of 2021 and not many folks had seen anything like this. The early StarLink trains created a bit of hysteria.

Here is a link to a video that I shot of the same Starlink train.
Pyspectrometer Project
Pyspectrometer Project Posted on 12/30/2024 12:20 AM
Pyspectrometer project. How to build your own thanks to Les Wright. Here is a link to a PDF showing the finished project and some of the fun I had.
Planit Pro
Planit Pro Posted on 12/30/2024 11:31 AM
Recently I stumbled upon an app named Planit Pro. It is available for phones or tablets on apple or android and costs $10. It is a photo planning app that allows you to easily figure out sun, moon, planets, milky way, stars, etc alignments and then model them.

For example, here I used it to figure out when the sun would rise over the notch on top of Mount Olympus, when viewed from my backyard. It occurs twice a year, once in March, and once in April.