Southern Astro Observatory Online

[Brad Moore]

Hi All,

I've added two more new features to the Southern-Astro website.

Southern Astro Weather Page - Mainly for my own benifit, maybe of some use to others in VIC and ACT.

Includes:
- Live Webcam
- Cloud Sensor Graphs

http://www.southern-astro.com.au/php/other/weather.php

I've also put up my observatory PC console: It gets intresting during clear nights at around 8:30 to 9pm.

http://www.southern-astro.com.au/php/other/console.php

Cheers,
Brad Moore

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Looks good Brad, the webcam looks a little out of focus though. Does your observatory have a clearish roof? looks kind of bright in there. Love how its looking at your scope, awesome.

Excellent additions. Cant wait till it is busy

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

A few guys were watching with interest the exposures of NGC3521, great setup you have. Are the exposures all done automatically ie. no input from you?

[Brad Moore]

Originally Posted by Astroman

A few guys were watching with interest the exposures of NGC3521, great setup you have. Are the exposures all done automatically ie. no input from you?

Hi Astroman,

The only input from me is programing CCDAutopilot3 each session (15 mins), once that is done, each night I hit the go button to repeat everything until I have the correct total exposure time (5 mins or less).

I've just changed to the screen showing you how I setup the light exposures.

Having said that you need a highly tuned system in order to pull this off. I spent about 8 week setting it all up and ironing out the bugs.

Most of the well know amature astro imager all use CCDAP3.
http://www.rc-astro.com/
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/

My LRGB exposure are short, if I shoot narrowband my sub exposures are normally 1 hour long.

Here is the Clear (luminance) images, stack and DPP from last night efforts. Reduced by 50%

Cheers,
Brad

[Brad Moore]

Here is the quick and dirty processing job from last nights run (that you watched).

I am planning to add 5 times more data to this. e.g. Another 5 nights worth before I consider it finished.

Cheers,
Brad

[RB (Andrew)]

Amazing stuff Brad.

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Very cool Brad, I only wish I could get the same for the Far North !

[davidpretorius]

awesome!

[ving (David)]

su-weet!

have to stay tuned me thinks