AstroPi
A DIY astronomy camera made with a raspberry pi 3b+ and the PiCamera v3! This project is in its pre beta stage.
If you're the cheap type of amateur astronomer, I know you'd rather make your own astrophotography camera than buy one. This project is for you! This project is a DIY astrophotography camera made with a raspberry pi 3b+ and the PiCamera v3. This project is in its pre beta stage.
Overview
This project has been tested on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ and PiCamera v3. It is not guaranteed to work on other versions of the Pi or the PiCamera. Testing on other versions of the Pi and PiCamera is welcome.
Demo
Coming soon!
Features
- Control the camera remotely
- Live preview via a web browser widget
- Manual focus, Gain, and exposure control
- Monitor the temperature of the camera
Materials
- Raspberry Pi 3b+
- PiCamera v3
- Raspberry Pi 3b+ case (with fan slot)
- An extra fan (for cooling the camera)
- A laptop or desktop computer
- Loooooong Ethernet cable
Build your AstroPi
Please follow the instructions in my blog post here to set up your AstroPi.
Usage
I've made a light application to control your AstroPi. It's available on Linux and Windows. Sorry, Mac users! Support is coming soon. You can download the application here.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome! Please read the contributing guidelines before contributing.
TODO
NON-CODE
- Write the installation instructions
- Write the usage instructions
- Write the contributing guidelines
- Create a demo video
- Create some sample images
- Design the camera and cooling fan housing for 3d prints
CODE
- Create a startup script for the raspberry pi which runs git pull and starts the server
- Stream to socket, get live preview
- Create setup for windows, linux
- Create setup for mac (maybe?)
- Create a mobile app (for travellers)
- Create a web app (for remote control)
- Custom image filenames