It’s always cool to see theRaspberry Pipushed to new limits, but it’s even more exciting to see it appear in new places. It’s not uncommon to find Raspberry Pi in the classroom or on the desk of an enthusiast, but how often do you come across them in the Arctic Circle? Maker and developer Frank Prins has checked that one off our list thanks to his custom-builtall sky camera.
If you aren’t familiar with all-sky cameras, these are often used around observatories to help either record or observe the stars in real-time. According to Prins, he lives on the island of Svalbard within the Arctic Circle. A nearby observatory’s all sky camera is occasionally offline when the northern lights are visible.
To get around this, Prins opted to create his own all sky camera that would operate whenever he wanted—especially when the northern lights appear. Prins was also kind enough to make the project open source by sharing a detailed post explaining its construction as well as all of the STL files you need to3D printthe components at home using thebest 3D printers.
In this project, Prins is using a Raspberry Pi 4 but you could get away with using a 3B+ or even the new flagshipRaspberry Pi 5in its place. The Pi will be situated in an extremely cold climate with temperatures ranging from 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) to -22°F (-30°C). Because of this, Prins is housing the components in a waterproof enclosure with an acrylic dome covering the camera lens. To reduce cable clutter, a Power over Ethernet shield was used so that one cable could both provide power and network connectivity.
Plans are in the works to publish more details about how the Raspberry Pi can be programmed to identify northern lights when they appear automatically by scanning images captured by the camera. Until then, you may find more information about thisRaspberry Pi projectover at Frank Prins’website. Be sure to follow him for more cool projects as well as any future updates to this one.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
