I put together a sky/roof rig with (4) 180* Color4K cams...

[Tinman]

Looks like a great project ! My concern is the wind moving the cameras on that mount. I'm thinking a short tripod type might work better. The problem with the satellite type mount is the base is so small for the leverage you will have on it. I have experienced this issue with a weathervane using a similar type mount.

Anxious to see your pics !

 

[Ri22o]

I have some tidying up to do with the wires in the attic, but I got the rig installed today. It didn’t take my neighbors long to ask me what in the hell the thing was up on my roof… I didn’t seem to get as much eye rolling with it as I thought I would and a couple are interested to see what it captures.

 

[Ri22o]

I still need to mess with the settings, but these are the FOVs. The Christmas lights aren't really helping right now, but that will only be an issue during certain times of year.

Any recommendations on where to start with exposure and other settings?

Thoughts on how the FOVs are set?

 

[wittaj]

That's awesome.

Tell them it is an attack drone waiting for perps LOL

 

[Mike A.]

With laser beams!

That is pretty awesome. Why the wider FOV with the East/West vs North/South cams?

One looking straight up so you get the planetarium-type view might be cool.

 

[Ri22o]

With laser beams!

That is pretty awesome. Why the wider FOV with the East/West vs North/South cams?

One looking straight up so you get the planetarium-type view might be cool.

I didn't know what I would actually see when I got them up there and thought it might be nice to have overviews looking those directions. Unfortunately it looks like there might be too much light down low to see anything in the sky.

 

[Flintstone61]

Dude. When the incoming rockets come into view please post on the Forum.... Or Maybe we need a group text ...

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Wooo, very nice pics, from the great pics i am feeling I am an astronaut fly on the sky.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

Crazy good pics for this one, a very good overview camera.

 

[Ri22o]

This was middle of the night after my Christmas lights turned off. There are towns to the Southeast and Southwest plus a highschool football field and giant sports complex due West, so I get a lot of light pollution from all of that.

All Image settings are still at 50 except for Sharpness, I turned it down to 35. BLC is turned on.

I found exposure wanted to be between 1/15 and 1/25 so I locked it somewhere in between. Any suggestions are welcomed.

 

[TonyR]

Local TV weather folks are going to want to live stream one or more of your views when they present the forecast!

 

[The Automation Guy]

Personally I would mount that thing a little lower on the back side of the roof. There is no need to have the cameras above the roof line if they are going to be pointed at the sky anyway. Getting the top of the unit in line with the top of the roof line would effectively hide it from street level. That would be 1000% better than having it skyline from every possible directly like it is now.

If you really want the front camera to show more than just the sky and continue to show the street/neighbor's houses like you do now, you could mount that front camera on top of the box so that you could mount it so the camera lens was the only thing sticking up above the roof line. Obviously you would still see the camera lens sticking above the roof, but that would be much less intrusive than that monstrosity that you currently have on top of the roof.

 

[wittaj]

Local TV weather folks are going to want to live stream one or more of your views when they present the forecast!

Maybe charge a minimal fee LOL

 

[Ri22o]

Personally I would mount that thing a little lower on the back side of the roof. There is no need to have the cameras above the roof line if they are going to be pointed at the sky anyway. Getting the top of the unit in line with the top of the roof line would effectively hide it from street level. That would be 1000% better than having it skyline from every possible directly like it is now.

If you really want the front camera to show more than just the sky and continue to show the street/neighbor's houses like you do now, you could mount that front camera on top of the box so that you could mount it so the camera lens was the only thing sticking up above the roof line.

Something I will consider.

At the time I had planned to have E/W flat and at the peak was the best place to put them. I am now considering pointing them all upwards which would allow it to be moved to the back of the roof. You will still see it from the back, but it will likely look better and be less noticeable. Unfortunately there was no good way to test this prior to deployment and I realize I will need to make changes as I go.

If I do decide to angle them all upwards and then decide I still want the front, flat view I can add an additional camera not associated with this rig elsewhere for that.

 

[garycrist]

Bird Spikes, especially for Mocking Birds.

 

[Flintstone61]

Great Job for your initial setup.....have you visited the adjuster for merging the 2 images at various lengths?
I though I had mine set right until i saw a double person walking thier double dog....

 

[Ri22o]

Great Job for your initial setup.....have you visited the adjuster for merging the 2 images at various lengths?
I though I had mine set right until i saw a double person walking thier double dog....

It is set at 200. I didn't know where to put it. It hasn't been bad, but there is still a little bit of a seam there.

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

A nice spy camera to watch if any Chinese spy ballons coming again.

 

[Ri22o]

A nice spy camera to watch if any Chinese spy ballons coming again.

 

[Ri22o]

I made some changes over the weekend and finished up the grounding of the lightning arrestor.

I decided to move the mount to the back side of the peak to make it less obvious to my neighbors that I’m a little bit off in the head.

With moving it behind the peak, the front, East cam wouldn’t work mounted to the junction box so I decided to mount it to the front roof. I may end up dismantling the junction box rig altogether and mounting them all to the roof this way because I noticed some cracks in the lid and corners of the junction box after only being mounted for a couple months. I’m also considering the roof mount option because I can’t think of any good way to build a stronger enclosure for everything that isn't super cumbersome. I would need to get around the box vent on the backside of the roof for the West camera, but it could possibly just be mounted below it.

The bird poop situation wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though, which was nice.