A decent DIY Allsky Camera can easily cost over $400 USD to build. A “low-cost” Raspberry Pi 4B based system with HQ camera and wide-angle lens with enclosure will cost over $250 USD to build. If that price range is too steep for you, you might consider a very low cost option. It will not be an ALL sky camera but will provide a fun experience with quality images and videos. Consider building an inexpensive sky camera that covers about 1/4 of the sky. This will still provide good coverage and captures very impressive day and night sky images and time-lapse videos using the Allsky software found on github: https://github.com/thomasjacquin/allsky There is an updated version of this software, currently in test (February 2023), that supports the Pi Camera Module 3. I expect that it will escape soon ๐
You can build a compact component-based sky camera for less than $75 USD or about $100 USD with a very nice enclosure.
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