skyrecorder

This is the continuation of what was put on ice in 2019. Everything was redone from scratch.

The main purpose is to record the sky and create monthly timelapses with as little work as possible. All* I have to do is to copy the daily videos of the previous month, cut out the nights, speed up the scene, and upload it to the interwebs ;)

* = still need to delete old/unused files from time to time (but i'll automate that too probably)

Checkout the website for the timelapse video archive and the recent view.

This documentation is mainly just here so I don't forget. You may need to adjust the paths and hostnames in all scripts if you clone this repository to your system. There is currently no plan to make this more portable.

Hardware

recorder:

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB (Rev 1.1)
• Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam

cruncher:

• HP EliteDesk 705 G1 DM
• Western Digital Elements 1 TB External Hard Drive

Network Setup

Nothing should be exposed to the internet. Only the cruncher needs outgoing internet access to upload the latest view to the web. I still have to rename the hostnames... but for now those will do.

cruncher:

• hostname: elity

recorder:

• hostname: studiopi

Filesystem Setup

recorder:

Root: /home/art2/skyrecorder/

cruncher:

Root: /mnt/stor1/skyrecorder/

Recorder and Cruncher Setup

OS for both: Debian 12

Run shared/bin/installdeps on both recorder and cruncher to install required software.

Configure passwordless keyauth SSH connection between recorder and cruncher.

Add job to crontab on cruncher to run cruncher/bin/bakedate yesterday daily. See cruncher/crontab.txt.

Start System

startbgworkers will create screen sessions. List them with screen -ls or resume with screen -r <session_name_or_number>.

recorder:

Run recorder/bin/startbgworkers.

cruncher:

Run cruncher/bin/startbgworkers.

Maintenance

Make sure to clean up old files on cruncher from time to time since this is not automated yet. On the recorder old files will be deleted after a pre-configured timeframe (see recordDeleteAfter in recorder/bin/mediamtx/skyrecorder.yml).

Run shared/bin/sysupd on both recorder and cruncher from time to time.

Manually check for mediamtx updates from time to time.

License

See LICENSE.