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Old 11-01-2008, 12:26 PM
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koputai (Jason)
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koputai is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 1,648
Here's my thinking on some of the issues:

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1) sky environment - is it raining or fine when you are thinking of imaging
Check the BOM rain radar site for rain, and the current observation pages for local temp, windstrength etc.

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2) security for your remote site
It'd be mounted on the roof of the back shed and just look like a box. The wife will still be here too.

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3) pointing abaility - if things go screwy - how will you reset and or avoid gear / tripod / pier collisions
4) restarts - if Windows blue screens of death - if a hand controller needs a reset, if a PSU is flakey - how will you detect and correct matters - how much redundancy will you allow for
5) operational matters - focusing, image retention / processing, taking darks, assessing temperatures at which you imaged, how will you power on and sync your scope to the night sky?
Still some things to think about here.

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1) have a PC near your gear (multi core processor - lotsa of RAM and a good UPS).
2) put the OTA and mount on a pier
3) run VNC server to expose the full PC with a fixed IP address set up over a router and broadband to a VNC client anywhere in the world.
Yes to all of these.

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Alternatively - why not just buy time on a decent set-up that has all the factors set up - APOs or RC on Paramount ME, running Tpoint sky models - in dark sky locations, with $10K cameras doing the piccy taking?
Kind of takes the fun out of it doesn't it? Why does anyone buy their own imaging set up if hiring time on better gear is easier?

Cheers,
Jason.
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