SkyPi - Raspberry Pi Sky Timelapse Tool

SkyPi is a software to create timelapse and startrail images using a Raspberry Pi camera.

Features

• Automatic switch between "day" and "night" modes based on geographic location
• Flexible Raspberry Pi Camera settings using different settings for day and night
• Modular outputs (startrails/overlay images, preview GIFs, timelapse) with variable settings for day and night
• Startrail image processor with exposure correction
• Timelapse image processor using ffmpeg
• Error recovery and resumption
• Configurable retain times and automatic garbage collection for output files
• Output to disk - usable with any webserver
• Support for stable links to latest images/startrails/timelapse videos
• Optional upload - e.g., youtube upload for timelapse videos
• MQTT reporting
• Watchdog for camera lockups

Setup and Configuration

1. Clone this repository onto your Raspberry Pi
2. Run pip3 install -r requirements.txt
3. Make sure that all external tools are available: sudo apt install exiftool convert ffmpeg
4. If you want to upload your timelapses to youtube, install and set up youtubeuploader. You may need to change the path to the binary in the settings.yml file. If you do not want to upload your timelapses, remove the upload setting (and the sub-settings) from settings.yml.
5. Adapt the storage paths and other settings in settings.yml.
6. Test your settings by running python3 main.py
7. Ensure that SkyPi is run on every boot. Adapt skypi.service to set up a Systemd service (see here for details).

Examples

Thumbnail Animation

Overlay (Startrail) Image Processor

Timelapse