From about age 13 or 14 shortly after I started into astronomy I drew pictures and designs for a remote robotic observatory. I had planned then to put it in central Australia, probably at the same time as my planned sailing trip across Lake Eyre. All this must have been inspired by seeing and reading about research telescopes like AAT at Siding Spring etc.
Over the last few years I've had the chance to actually build a remote, completely automated observatory. I'd always ment to keep a construction diary here on IIS having benefited from so many ideas and learning from others. In the end just getting the thing built and working has been such a massive effort somehow it got lost along the way.
To share my learning, choices and experiences along the way I thought I'd make up for it now with a series of posts about the major parts and decisions, and what I've learned about the hardware along the way.
I thought I'd try and cover:
- Footings & Pier
- The Deck
- The Dome
- The Electrical Setup
- The Networking Setup
- Weather & Sky Monitoring
- Computer Hardware & Software
- The Mount
- The Telescope
- The Camera
- Remote Flat Fields
- Humidity Control
Let me know if there are other things you're curious about along the way. I'll try and post steadily over the next little while as I dig through photos and write up the sections.
"Toadhall"
Why the name? Mr Toad of Toad Hall is a key character from Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame ... Of course we would all want to be Mr Badger, or perhaps Mole. But instead Toad who lives in Toadhall was prone to impulsive and crazy obsessions, frustrating flights of fancy each invariable expensive and not always successful. This seems like Astro Photography to me.