Xbox Live Camera on Linux (Part 5)

A brief gap in the clouds this evening gave me a window of about five minutes to test out a couple of Xbox cameras under a night-time sky. I took 30 frames of five seconds each, ten seconds apart. Here are the first and last frames from a camera that I’ve modded by removing the IR filter and killing the on-board LEDs. At the time I had the standard lens fitted.

It’s not visible at reduced resolution, but click on the images and there are most definitely a number of stars from Ursa Major showing up there. What is also sadly painfully obvious is the amount of sensor noise.

This is the first of a similar run from a camera with the LEDs killed, but with the IR filter still in place:

It may be partly down to the cloud cover, but the stars are nowhere near as obvious. I shall retry the test later in the week when we have clear skies forecast.

What was also interesting was that I’d left the front of the case off the second camera and the noise level was significantly lower. I’m going to have to try that with the IR cam to see if it makes as large a difference. Remounting the camera in a different housing and fitting a fan may well make sense.

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