New observatory site visit

[Somnium (Aidan)]

If anyone wants to follow along, i just posted a video of me visiting a site where i may be putting decent sized observatory up. i am keen to get some feedback. it seems pretty good, has its pros and cons but check it out.

https://youtu.be/N9otUI1UGeE

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

The site looks very interesting, I love those unobstructed views of the sky and since it looks like humidity is low over there it might be the right spot. I'm not sure how the wind will affect imaging, but I feel that in an open and dry space stronger wind should be expected. A valley on the other hand could have less wind but more turbulences. Please keep us updated

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by Slawomir

The site looks very interesting, I love those unobstructed views of the sky and since it looks like humidity is low over there it might be the right spot. I'm not sure how the wind will affect imaging, but I feel that in an open and dry space stronger wind should be expected. A valley on the other hand could have less wind but more turbulences. Please keep us updated

so in order to be sure that the site is good, i am taking my entire rig up there for 2 weekends, measure the seeing and check out just how dark it is, should be good, just need to borrow a tripod for my PMX from someone ...

[Boozlefoot]

You'll love it up here! Its that dark though be sure to have an illuminated reticle handy if manually finding. And bring your winter woolies!

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by Boozlefoot

You'll love it up here! Its that dark though be sure to have an illuminated reticle handy if manually finding. And bring your winter woolies!

Thanks, but this will be a fully remotely operated site, i wont be spending too many nights there, i will be operating from my warm house in Sydney

[Atmos (Colin)]

You should be able to check seeing conditions with easily without needing your whole current rig. A HEQ5, 8" F/5 and a guide cam (3.75 micron pixels) will give 0.77"/pixel resolution and 1s subs on what would make a good guide star (not saturated). As long as you ONLY use the centre of field you don't need a corrector.

The same could be done with a 150mm F/8 achro and a 1.25" threaded filter over the camera to take chromatic error out of the equation.

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

You should be able to check seeing conditions with easily without needing your whole current rig. A HEQ5, 8" F/5 and a guide cam (3.75 micron pixels) will give 0.77"/pixel resolution and 1s subs on what would make a good guide star (not saturated). As long as you ONLY use the centre of field you don't need a corrector.

The same could be done with a 150mm F/8 achro and a 1.25" threaded filter over the camera to take chromatic error out of the equation.

yeah i could do that, but my concern is that i couldn't rule out the quality of the mount and its contribution to guiding and FWHM. at least my gear is a known entity, i know i will get good results out of it if the seeing is there. also, i would like to get like for like comparison to my existing site and i have a heck of a lot of data to compare to.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Forget guiding, if all you're looking at is FWHM and seeing you're only using 1s exposures for seeing the sky conditions.
For actual data comparison you do need to use your current rig though.

[glend (Glen)]

Aidan you should be able to get historical seasonal wind data from the BOM, well as measured at the nearest data point. Are you going to install a weather station on the Observatory to report back to you the local conditions? I would think wind speed, and dew point could be pretty important. I find that my gear in the observatory can tolerate some wind, in LRGB, but for narrowband I really can't proceed to far in windy conditions.

What scopes will be installed? Are you going to use Flap Caps on the scopes?

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Originally Posted by glend

Aidan you should be able to get historical seasonal wind data from the BOM, well as measured at the nearest data point. Are you going to install a weather station on the Observatory to report back to you the local conditions? I would think wind speed, and dew point could be pretty important. I find that my gear in the observatory can tolerate some wind, in LRGB, but for narrowband I really can't proceed to far in windy conditions.

What scopes will be installed? Are you going to use Flap Caps on the scopes?

i will be installing a full weather station with anemometer as well, i have it at my current obs site. that will be posted on a public web site. the observatory walls will block out most of the wind on the scope itself, we will just have to see how the seeing is affected. i am not sure why NB would be worse in windy conditions though ...

[Boozlefoot]

If its near where I'm thinking, it'll br too damn cold at night for the better part to be windy. Days up there are at times windy for weeks (wind farm being built 1st half this year), but after true twilight usually quite calm. (All the better for frosting, even @ 7.00pm!)