At Croatian Meteor Network, we have always strived for a meteor station to be as cheap as possible. By doing so, network quickly grew to over 20 stations. Having multiple stations covering same volume of Earth’s atmosphere allows precise orbit calculation. Over the years tedious task of manually examining and processing each image was replaced by automated software. Thus, focus has changed from data collection to data analysis. This has led to more than 100 new meteor shower discoveries.

But, there has never been complete satisfaction with capture hardware nor software. Current software solutions are often expensive and/or supporting only specific hardware. Most of the software is written for Windows machines, with few exceptions. Almost certainly, software is closed-source, no matter how advanced.

Currently, if you would like to operate your own meteor station, you’ll most likely end up buying expensive cameras (~$400 per camera) and capture hardware (~$200), as well as a powerful enough PC for running obsolete software. We decided to tackle this issue by developing a flexible and open-source software solution based on 21st century methodologies. Recent advances in field of low-cost single-board computers offer us a replacement for expensive desktop machines without compromising real-time processing capabilities. Also, new generation of low-cost CCTV cameras have the same sensitivity as one order of magnitude more expensive branded cameras. While current solutions could cost you several thousands of US dollars we aim for complete video meteor station for under 100 bucks.