Whilst cruising through the astronomy websites one rainy night in 2007, I came across a page on the Armagh Observatory’s website. This set an idea going…

After some considered thought, several months later I had a Watec 902H2 Ultimate security camera. This 1/2 inch monochrome CCD camera is not only very sensitive but also very small, useful, as I only have a limited amount of space available to me – the top of the shed in the garden!

A trawl of the Internet had made me aware of several pieces of software that would help me capture the images I sought. In the end, I chose to use HandyAvi software, due to a compromise between purchase cost, features and PC requirements. As luck would have it, I already had a very useful 1.6GHz mini ITX PC available; Unfortunately this proved to be slightly under-powered for this type of application but would have to suffice.

Thus in 2008 was born my first Video Observatory, located at 53.1°N, 1.6°W, which has now been operational in one form or another ever since.

However, my location in the East Midlands, close to the Peak District National Park, is right underneath the main north/south airway for the United Kingdom, as well as being just to the east of one of the primary approach paths to Manchester airport. This can cause several “false” triggers a night due to aircraft navigation lights. However, these are easy to identify due to their “strobe” lighting and relatively slow movement across the sky. Also, being surrounded by houses on all sides, some only a few metres away, my sky aspect is marginal to say the least but it proves that even in the most compromised locations, science can still be achieved.... it's also great fun!

In 2010, it became apparent that my PC was not up to the job of detecting or more accurately I should say, recording, meteors. The HandyAvi software is very capable but I just did not have a PC available powerful enough to encode any consistent movies and do the software justice.

I then had a bit of a rethink and decided to not to attempt and capture every single meteor that passed by my lens - I was going to attempt to record just the brighter ones. To that end, I have purchased a 4 channel CCTV digital video recorder. Not only is this a dedicated video recorder with very capable "motion" detection software built-in, it is also accessible from my ALIX 2D2 observatory control computer!

In 2011, during recovery from surgery, I had chance to do some more detailed uninterrupted web browsing and came across a circuit diagram for a cloud detector built around an infra red temperature sensor and an Arduino prototyping board. A few clicks later and after providing my credit card details, I was up and running....

Having reasonable skills in electronics and computer programming, I have taken readily available LINUX tools and scripted together this website from data that they, my cameras and a consumer grade weather station

The story continues....