This is a big topic so I'll aim to just list the main bits, happy to cover specific questions. The whole dome runs off a fanless Fit-PC IPC2 model - so far this has been 100% reliable and I know a number of other IISers are also using these. As you see in the photo, I've added an external fan - While according to the manufacturing it's fine for these to get very hot, adding a low volume 120mm fan on top like this has dropped the temperature hugely... This fan will eventually fail because of damp etc, but it's cheap and easy to replace.
On Windows 10 Pro the main software stack I'm using is the following:
- ACP
- TheSkyX
- Maxim DL
- PWI3
The key utilities are:
- ClarityII (weather)
- Cloud Sensor Graph II (weather graphs)
- SQM Reader Pro 3 (SQM graphs)
- SBIG AllSky-340
- TeamViewer
- Dropbox
One of the biggest jobs all year has been refining all the automation and scripting. Startup and shutdown scripts, automated sky flats, automated humidity management and so-on and so-on. After over a year I'm still making small changes and improvements, but the observatory is at the point of totally hands off operation. I have to load the scheduler queue with objects and I have to deal with the inevitable crashes of various pieces of software in the system. One of the tricky things with astro imaging is lots of pieces of software and hardware, all written by and used by fairly small groups of people. Bugs and unexpected interactions are just a fact of life.
One thing I will say, the support from Bob at ACP is first class. I pay a subscription for Maxim, TheSkyX and ACP ... ACP is the only one that feels like it has good support, and is worth the price of admission. The others are very much grudge purchases.
If I did it again I'd love to see if I could get the same functionality using a linux based system... Indi isn't there yet.