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Thanks Martin.
I finally finished upgrading the interior of the new house with timber flooring, wainscoting, VJ board feature walls and other work. All very time consuming but it came out great.
I have had a slab out the back ready for the new observatory for some time.
I just added a walkway slab to where the front door will be for easier access.
In the meantime, I set up a pier I have had for some time made for me by a guy in WA. It was a prototype and extremely well made. I set that up over the last 2 days and made an adapter plate to mount an iOptron CEM 70 with ipolar on it. I finished that yesterday and installed the mount. I got out my CFF 105 F6 last night and mounted it and did a small amount of visual on the moon. Lots of holes drilled and tapped.
Its a smallish mount, quite portable and somewhat light and it seems well made. It has Paramount MX type locks on the 2 axes which I like. Its centre weighted and may give it an advantage. It came with a PE graph which is very low, around 4 arc secs and quite smooth. The remaining PE may PEC out. Time will tell.
I intend to get the portable pier for it so I can do a small slab at my dark site observatory so I can have 2 imaging rigs going at the same time (3 rigs if I setup my mirrorless camera gear). I will use ir for my refractors the CFF 105 F6 and AP 130 GT F6 with its quad TCC reducer/flattener making it F4.5. I have a Riccardi reducer for the CFF but I still need to tune that.
My dark site I will mount my AP Riccardi Honders 305mm F3.8 astrograph. I need something large aperture and fast as my dark site in the last few years has mostly been cloudy and in a 4 day trip perhaps only one or two clear nights so you've got to have a setup that is fast.
The new observatory at my house I am planning to be about 2.8 to 3 metres x the same or close to it. I back onto a golf course so I need to plan out the roll off roof carefully for maximum protection from wayward golf balls (a solar panel has been smashed and I got 2 dents in the ceilings of my alrefresco. Fortunately they don't play at night or early morning so its more a matter of setting up the best park position.
I am thinking simpla colorbond cladding on a light timber or metal frame with a door and a roll off roof frame hidden with some decorative cutout panels. Sliding gate metal tracks (Bunnings) and a lightweight roof perhaps just flat or maybe pitched for extra clearance and perhaps better protection.
In the meantime I have my temporary setup and a Telegizmo cover. I want to get that setup and working in the next week or so. AP130 at F4.5 and QHY600m for that. CFF 105 F6 and FLI Proline 16803 for the other widefield setup. CCD is not gone yet.
Also a Canon EOSRa on a Vixen tripod and Fornax Lightrack 11 with a QHY Polemaster for polar alignment. There are tons of super scenic spots to do Milky Way nightscapes around here.
Seeing here at times can be great. Other times just average but I think overall its better seeing than at my last home which was at 170 metres. This one is at 20 metres or so but close to the ocean - around 2kms away
So not a lot of landscape to cause local poor seeing.
Greg.
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