|
Astroimaging Trolley
In my continuing quest to minimise setup and pull down time, I spent some time and a modest amount of money to put together a trolley that would help me setup my imaging rig in the backyard in the shortest possible time.
I used an old desktop PC that was sitting idle at home. It's an old work computer that needed some new ram ($10 for 1Gb off ebay) and a wireless network card ($16). The computer has been setup to login in automatically and takes a static IP on my home network. This means I can connect to it via Remote Desktop Client from my Macbook, so no screen, keyboard or mouse is required for the desktop. I sit inside where it's warm and can watch TV or catch some zzzz's on the couch. The network link isn't super fast (usually reports ~30-75Mbps), but I have no problems controlling the computer from my lounge room.
I then bought some 3 metre USB cables to connect to the camera and auto guider, plus cables for the Robofocus and mount. These cables are bundled together as wiring looms.
I also made a vinyl cover to go over the trolley to keep the dew off out.
Now, I can wheel the trolley out to beside the scope and plug everything in within about 2 minutes. At the end of the night, I wheel the trolley away and put a silver tarp over the scope for pack-up in the morning.
Comments welcome.
DT
|