Monitoring a remote observatory - web connected cameras GAS Astrophotography Interest Group · jonathan.shinn · ... · 1 · 88 · 0

jonathan.shinn 0.00
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Now I’m imaging from within the house I don’t get to monitor my mount and scope. Last night Astroberry didn’t ‘meridian flip’ when I expected it to and crashed the camera into the pier. Do any of you have cameras in your observatories and if so what would you recommend please?
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maxchess 2.61
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Jonathan, sorry to hear about your Meridian crash. It happens. I have always been nervous about an unattended flip. Have you set mount limits in EKOS(Astroberry) ? These stop the mount tracking if it goes too far past the Meridian.  My setup is also in a roll off shed and I installed a cheap IP camera I got on ebay for around £20 so I could watch remotely(Switch off the IR for imaging).  I also did a simulated daytime flip to check everything worked.
I run a free piece of software called Ispy. 
This assumes that you have a network connection to your OBS-shed. Mine is too far away to for wifi to reach, but I do have power via a very long extension cable, so I connected a   powerline unit  at each end and now have an ethernet connection to the scope.

There is a thread on Indi/EKOS(aka Astroberry)  support about flip crashes.  If you cannot fix it, I suggest you post there. They are very responsive.

I hope your gear survived the collision
Max
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