@KiwiDave I think it could be better if you use the C325WB as its sensor is designed for low-light situation. By the way, the video that you captured is nice  I have never seen a meteor in the sky.

NguyenKhoi wrote

  @KiwiDave I think it could be better if you use the C325WB as its sensor is designed for low-light situation.

Hi   @NguyenKhoi  thanks for your reply and the complement on my video.  I had the C325WB on my wish list (they are not yet available here in New Zealand) but a fellow YouTuber who saw my video bought one and so far the results haven't been good.  The dark sky images have been extremely noisy and grainy.  He has since bought a couple of C320WS cameras and is continuing to do some comparison tests.  The Moon is currently very bright so he is waiting on a nice dark, clear night to compare the two cameras side by side.  I believe he will post here later.  But yes, based on the specs for the C325WB with its larger aperture and larger, more sensitive image sensor, I thought it was going to be much better than the C320WS.  Maybe a firmware update might help?

@KiwiDave
Based on my knowledge, the C325WB just provides a little better low-light images. The C320WS lens aperture is f/1.6, and the C325WB is f/1.0, so the C325WB is a little brighter. But when it’s getting too dark, the camera itself needs to slower the shutter speed to letting the lights go in the sensor, causing blurry and noisy. I’m not an expert about these things, please ignore if there’s any mistakes :v

  @KiwiDave I am also interested in meteor (and aurora) video, under KiwiDave's guidance, thanks Dave.

On the same pole, looking in the same direction I have:

-C325WB, hardware version 1.0, firmware version 1.0.8

-C320WS, hardware version 2.0, firmware version 1.0.5 (note: Dave's hardware is version 1.0)

I am in a very dark area, Bortle class 2, and the C325 especially gives a very grainy video. I will post comparison's of the two cameras in dark skies in a few days, hopefully with a meteor?.

But in moonlit skies the C325 video is stunning. I was lucky to have a strong aurora display during an almost full moon a few days ago, and will show both cameras for the same time period. This is the NOAA aurora report, with my location the red X:

This is the C325WB:

And this is the C320WS:

And here's the link to the youtube video:

https://youtu.be/svi3zM5h9NY?si=HFc4whIfmHdLQxRm

-Chris in NW Ontario, Canada

  @KiwiDave @nwchris 

That's amazing! I never expect a home camera can do that. It's a pity that we don't have much chance to see Meteor or even stars in the city. 

  @KiwiDave 

I finally managed to get a meteor trigger using ContaCam software under Dave's suggestions. It happened at the beginning of an aurora storm.

I found that adjusting the ContaCam advanced camera setting "drop motion shorter than" from 1 to 0 seconds may have helped.

This is a still frame directly from the C325WB camera:

 And this is from the C320WS, unfortunately not in frame quite as well, but you can see it faintly under the "2023":

And here's a link the C325WB video on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/JJ1KO9Xe_nY?si=hIf7541MDWGAotCL

So the question is: why does Dave's C320WS hardware version 1 do so much better than my C320WS hardware version 2 for looking at stars?

-Chris

OK, I’m in ! After reading this and watching your videos I have bought a C325WB as a north facing sky cam to pick up auroras (they’re not common here but they do happen now and then).

It is now up and running, streaming live to a web page (via youtube). Been getting issues with internet drops/bitrate etc, but I plan to hardwire everything direct to the router soon which I hope will improve things and allow a better quality stream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVvpuf6aLg

I have just installed Contacam to try for meteor detection. Do you have any advice on settings ? I currently have sensitivity set to 50 and "drop motion shorter than" set to 0 s.

Thanks !

@GazUpNorth 

Beautiful camera location you have there!

I think the C325WB tries too hard in dark skies, so I've found I get less noisy video by turning lights to ON, then taping them up with electrical tape.

The Contacam setup and masking is dicussed in the comments of a video at the beginning of this thread.

You'll have to mask out the pine tree.

I use Contacam masking, and a batch file in it to turn the camera(s) on after dark. If this is a permanent camera installl I can send you the batch file info, it works quite well.

Contacam is a bit of a CPU and memry hog, three C325's are about all my older 4 core, 8 gig RAM PC can handle. One camera should not be bad.

I actually make my meteor videos from the Contacam triggered files set to "Good", as I'm too lazy to email them from the camera.

Lot's of false triggers from airplanes, I think I will email Contacam and suggest a "fast stuff only" trigger, which would be great.

I get glitches a couple times a night, all cameras are on Wifi:

You will be amazed how well it picks up aurora, stuff that you can barely see with your eyes pop out really well, with lots of colour.

I check the NOAA web site to see if the previous night was good.

There is probably more Contacam setup stuff, post again with any more questions.

-Chris

  @nwchris Thanks for you reply !

I've followed your advice to turn the lights on, I have them set to auto and 1 brightness in the tapo app.

I have set up Contacam to mask everything except the sky, it works great. It is permanent install so the batch file sounds interesting, I don't need Contacam running in the daytime so if there is a way to get it to monitor hours of darkness only that would be great.

At the moment I have an old quadcore i5 16GB ram laptop running this and also an allsky camera that FTPs an image to a webpage every 60 seconds. The allsky software, OBS live streaming software and Contacam has my CPU running at about 75%.

Contacam certainly works well to pick up movement. The big problem I have at the moment is poor network and regular drops in speed, which in turn leads to glitches just like the one shown in your pic. I tested it all night the other night and got 200 triggers ! Nearly all were glitches in video quality, most of the video in Contacam was showing at 10fps or less which isn't ideal. I presume this is network/bitrate issue so I have just bought some cat6 cable and will be wiring the laptop and camera direct to my router tomorrow, I'm really hoping this will make things more stable for both the livestreaming and Contacam video quality/detections. Time will tell.

If your Contacam setup is working well to detect meteors it would be good to know what sensitivity setting you are using. 

I do a bit of night sky photography and monitor online aurora data most days. I set up this live stream camera mainly to check current sky conditions and to see if it is worth heading out with my camera or not. Looking forward to seeing some aurora appearing on it in the future !

Here's the page

https://northumberland-astro.space/sky-cameras/

Thanks again

Gary

  @nwchris 

OK here is a quick update. I've wired the camera and laptop direct to the router and its more stable. The problem I have now with Contacam is the daytime. I ran it all night with just one minor glitch/detection, as soon as it got light flying birds kept triggering it, I was getting up to 10 notifications per hour ! At the moment all I can do is manually turn it on each night and off again in the morning. Is there a way to schedule/automate switching on and off ?

Thanks

Gary