Pi Gazing is a project to build meteor cameras using Raspberry Pi

[pjsg]

Unclear what the relationship is with the Global Meteor Network (https://globalmeteornetwork.org/) that has people build meteor cameras, often based on RPis, and then contribute the data so that meteor orbits can be determined.

This site: https://tammojan.github.io/meteormap/ shows the meteors detected over the last 24 hours. You can see that the UK is pretty well covered with cameras as are some parts of Europe. The US is rather sparser -- with only Arizona having good coverage.

Building a camera is fairly easy and is under $200 -- most of the parts can be ordered on Aliexpress.

[scrps]

Even cheaper are esp32 boards. Seeed has tiny esp32c3 with camera included for $14 USD. Granted the camera module isn't the greatest but it may be good enough for sky tracking, there are also other camera modules.

I feel like RPis are overkill unless the data is being processed in situ (even then the rpi may be overkill compute) beyond just packaging it up digestibly to be crunched elsewhere.

[fanf2]

Huh, there are more of these than I knew!

https://gfo.rocks/partners.html

https://fireballs.imo.net/

[darkhorn]

How I should read the metor lines? What end of the line is impact point? It is really an impact point or last point where the light was observered. How I can search for a metheor using this map?

[Paddywack]

I wonder if SpaceX could put cameras on the far side of the Starlink satellites to make a network gazing outwards. To help compensate for the frustration they are causing astronomers…

[dtgriscom]

Hmmm. Synthetic aperture astronomy using an Earth-sized sphere of 4300 satellites.

[Ringz]

Good idea!

From Wikipedia:

„As of early March 2024, it consists of over 6,000 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)[5] that communicate with designated ground transceivers. Nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 34,400.“

The whole thing could be considered a 360 degree camera. I have no idea how good the theoretically achievable resolution would be overall.

[dr_kiszonka]

I like the idea, but they would probably put the cameras facing the Earth.

[is_true]

is there any place where they should register those cameras?

Imagine if they already have cameras in all satellites and one day just announce they are launching a new Earth observation service.

Knowing how much elon seems to likes playing with market he prob would short all other companies in the sector before making the announcement.

[redundantly]

I wonder how long the sensors on those cameras can survive being pointed up at the sky like that. Surely the image quality would deteriorate over time as the sun destroys the sensor until it eventually stops working.

[abdullahkhalids]

The cameras are only used at night, since that's when meteors are visible.

[jimbobthrowawy]

It's great to see these distributed data gathering projects actually be popular and succeed in their plan.

There's one for tracking lightning strikes globally too: www.blitzortung.org

[rapjr9]

Looked through the Github files and I don't see anything that describes the hardware. This web page shows a picture of the insides of the camera housing (click "Next" once to see the picture):

https://pigazing.dcford.org.uk/howitworks.php

The camera is a Watec 902H2 Ultimate, and the lense is one of these:

https://github.com/dcf21/pi-gazing/blob/master/configuration...

Probably the "Siemens 1/2" F1.2 4-12mm Varifocal Auto Iris C Mount CCTV Lens" since the AutoIris port on the camera is connected to the lense in the picture. The video capture is an Easier CAP USB capture device, like this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/355668644499

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32832474454.html

The Pi is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B according to the text but the photo caption says it's a Pi Mk 3, maybe either will work. It has a Pi Hat adapter board on the top (POE plugs into it and it seems to have a relay that connects to the camera, maybe to control power to the camera). The camera outdoor housing is made by Genie, looks like a TPH-2000, no longer made, runs on 240V and has a heater:

https://www.citysecuritysystems.co.uk/genie-tph-2000-230v

In the picture, maybe that's the heater board underneath the camera?

[dr_kiszonka]

Oh, they even have UFOs! https://pigazing.dcford.org.uk/moving_obj.php?id=20220114_20...

(BTW, nice overlays below the video player and a neat project overall.)

[tonetegeatinst]

Could this be used to track sattelites of space debris?

You might need to be imaging in a different wavelength....I'm unsure how this would be done.

[rtkwe]

Most satellites and debris don't reflect that much light, plus there's already pretty extensive tracking of any object up there above a certain size by the USSF (formerly USAF) spacefence.

[captaincrowbar]

I'm disappointed that they passed up the opportunity to call the project Stargazy Pi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargazy_pie)

[peddling-brink]

I was hoping this was a diy type of project. I’d love to contribute to something like this.

[peddling-brink]

Found this from another comment: https://globalmeteornetwork.org/wiki/index.php?title=Build_%...

Looks like $500 US is about the price of entry if you want to buy a kit.