Remote Observatory

[DarkArts]

Hi folks,

It seems increasingly difficult to find a back yard that's actually dark, so I've started wondering whether a remote observatory is a better option. (BTW, by "remote" I only mean somewhere that's further than the backyard and a lot darker, not a five hour hike up a mountain. )

There are plenty of folks sharing their ideas and designs for piers, ROR/dome obs setups and automation ... and I thank every one of them.

But how the heck does one go about finding a place (I guess a very small parcel of land in a suitable rural or semi-rural spot) to buy or lease? And what would be the indicative costs involved?

Any ideas or past experience? Suggestions on cost? Other issues? Would it work better if a few people joined together to setup a small cluster of remote obs's and shared some infrastructure? (Strongmanmike has an excellent thread, but it looks like he knew the landowner in question, so not sure that would apply to others looking for a dark site).

All suggestions welcome. (And if this all sounds crazy tomorrow, I'll blame it on the long-weekend celebrations).

[rogerg (Roger)]

From my experience smallish (50 - 300 acre) lots do come up for sale in suitable places, but you then have to be prepared to spend the time and money on maintenance of a place which is some distance from your home. Start doing a quick excel sheet of costs, compare that to your existing "budget for toys" and it's easy to think twice, I find. If you are single or have some working arrangement that makes travelling to maintain a block easier then it would work.

In WA there are rules about maintenance of weeds, fences, grass, firebreaks etc, which mean you can't simply buy a block, put a shed on it and forget about the rest.

IMO it's best to invest in group owned assets, but that gets political and tricky.

Chances are there's farmers out there happy to lease space for a shed, but I've never had the situation to ask one about that.

Interested to hear what others say.

[DarkArts]

Thanks, Roger. It's something I would work towards, and save up for, but it would be handy to know if it's going to be affordable at all.

I'd be thinking more like leasing some land in, say, a dis-used corner of someone's property - I'd only need, say, 10m x 10m and enough access to come and go. But it'd be more worthwhile with more people, and going a bit bigger ...

Still very appreciative of suggestions, particularly if someone knows the kind of costs involved.

[el_draco (Rom)]

The key to remote operations is extremely reliable gear. I am working through the process now and it is no picnic. I have the site, and gear already; breaking ground asap for the obs. All up so far, minus land, $50k and counting. I figure another $10k to complete and automate the dome. That's one big fancy 4wD or a big chunk off the mortgage(s)... Prefer the scope though ;-)

[DarkArts]

Thanks, Rom. I wasn't expecting it to be cheap, but $50K without land is more than I was thinking. I might have to sleep on it a bit more, and add up all the costs in a spreadsheet.

[el_draco (Rom)]

A lot of the cost is in the mount. I lucked out and got a PME 11 when the dollar was worth something. It depends on what OTA you want. Big scope, bigger mount. Mine will carry over 100kg which means a 14in SCT and a 132mm refractor with all accessories and it'll still have 30kg free capacity.

An MX is half the price and an exquisite mount but rated to about 40kg. That still allows a hell of a lot of gear. The PME will be my last mount so i bought bigger. In a trade off, I'd build a bigger observatory, (for future expansion), rather than get a bigger scope, I'd also buy a bigger mount than OTA for the same reason. Mount is king.

Certainly wouldn't buy land for purpose, I lucked out and scored an amazing block of land some years back and it meets the need for this and other activities. I imagine it would be easy to get access to a dark site for a peppercorn rent. I wouldn't do a share deal, to much scope (No pun) for "issues". Of course you could buy in to an existing site or, alternatively, buy time on an established observatory, of which there are many.

Lots of food for thought no matter what your goal is.

[BPO]

Originally Posted by el_draco

The key to remote operations is extremely reliable gear.

The key to remote operations is extremely reliable power and comms. It's a complete waste of time without both.

[DarkArts]

Thanks, Rom, BPO.

I have some idea about the data, power and comms side, having done a fair bit of work in that arena over the years, though not at remote sites per se. Still plenty of things to learn in this application.

I'd be trying to keep the dark site within an hour's drive of home to be able to fix teething issues and visit, say, once a month to check up on things. Thankfully that is quite possible from Canberra (and perhaps about the only thing Canberra is good for ...).

I guess you're saying that an EQ8 wouldn't be a good enough mount for remote operation? Anyway, plenty of time before I get to that decision point since I've yet to determine overall feasibility.

[BPO]

Originally Posted by DarkArts

I guess you're saying that an EQ8 wouldn't be a good enough mount for remote operation?

In my opinion you should focus on a local electrical and communication setup that's as reliable as possible before you begin worrying about fancy gear. No matter what snazzy astro equipment you have in your observatory, it's all effectively useless if you can't power it or talk to it.

[Paul Haese]

I have a couple of remote setups. An hour away from home. These are the things that I think are critical.

1. You need to be a good bug hunter to get remote imaging working.

2. All the gear has to be very reliable including computer on site.

3. Good internet connection.

4. IP switches are a must.

5. It must be somewhere relatively secure.

Without all of these in place you will struggle.

Do it on you own if you can. Partnerships seldom work.

[BPO]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

I have a couple of remote setups. An hour away from home. These are the things that I think are critical.

1. You need to be a good bug hunter to get remote imaging working.

The key is to work out the bugs before locking up and leaving the remote site. Test, test and test again on the bench, then put the setup through its paces on location via the internet connection you will be using from home.

2. All the gear has to be very reliable including computer on site.

Yes, and the good news is most modern equipment is actually pretty reliable... But double-up on it anyway, because stuff fails; install two $100 PCs instead of only one. Use two $50 routers instead of relying on a single device.

Off-grid? Calculate your absolute worse-case scenario power consumption, then double the number, and buy a bigger-capacity battery bank still. Buy two of them. Don't forget to do the same with your PV array, because there's no fun quite like watching your site go offline, and your battery die from chronic undercharging after blithely saying, "Nah, we don't need all those new panels when we can strip a few of the old ones off uncle Cyril's shed. They'll do!"

3. Good internet connection.

Again, intensive and extensive testing along with redundancy is the key, unless you love not being able to access the site most of the time, or you enjoy hours-long drives to the location just to click the "connect" button.

4. IP switches are a must.

Very useful, as are digital relay controllers. The ping-timer is your friend.

5. It must be somewhere relatively secure.

This is no doubt very important in urban and semi-rural locations. Anywhere scumbags aren't too lazy to go.

Without all of these in place you will struggle.

All these and more. Anyone thinking of establishing a truly remotely-operated site should think about the hassles people have with backyard observatories, then imagine those hassles occurring at a distant site accessible only via the internet or after an arduous journey.

It pays to plan ahead, test like a maniac, and be prepared for the worst.

Do it on you own if you can. Partnerships seldom work.

... And it helps if you're single...

[Paul Haese]

Having done over 600 hours of remote imaging in the last two years I can say that bugs will always arise on a semi regular basis despite the amount of rigorous testing undertaken and the multiple levels of redundancy. One piece of equipment can fail and cause a hang in the system and that can leave a roof open. It is inevitable and hence why hosting sites have service personnel present.

[BPO]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

Having done over 600 hours of remote imaging in the last two years I can say that bugs will always arise on a semi regular basis despite the amount of rigorous testing undertaken and the multiple levels of redundancy. One piece of equipment can fail and cause a hang in the system and that can leave a roof open. It is inevitable and hence why hosting sites have service personnel present.

That's why you use more than one piece of equipment where possible. The object is to minimise potential failure points and the number of service visits to the site, as well as the amount of downtime.

Many people don't realise what's involved.

[DarkArts]

Thanks for the advice - all received gratefully.

I'm actually OK with the electronics/comms/IT side - I've managed a fair few mission critical systems including redundancy and automatic fail-over. I don't ever want to see another reliability block diagram or operational availability calculation (well, unless the job pays really, really well). I'm a systems engineer by profession.

Anyone have a ballpark figure for land lease and remote ROR Obsy construction costs?

Although I acknowledge it's a fair way down the path in the decision process, but I had figured an EQ8 would do as the mount. I'd be interested if there's a consensus that it's not a reliable enough mount ... that really is a single point of failure ... along with the focuser, camera, filter wheel ...

And that's another reason why I don't want to be more than an hour away.

[Paul Haese]

My roll off roof obs including drive cost me about 8,000 dollars all up.

[DarkArts]

Thanks, Paul.

That's certainly within the realms of possibility. Good to know.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

My remote setup (ok, it's only 50m away, but I still never visit it!) has only had one unrecoverable issue in its 5 years.

That was the untimely demise of the Dome shutter battery which I had neglected to swap out routinely and caused the dome to remain open which could have been very nasty indeed. As it was it caused me to leave the comfort of my house to venture out into a brisk Qld winters evening

Like all problems, remote observatories can be made so much easier with a liberal application of money. The cheapest 'turn-key' solution is probably a fully automated 2.3m Sirius dome, but you won't be seeing much change from 20k once you have put it on a slab

The good news is that the dome will last forever and can easily be taken down and moved if need be. It was certainly a big factor for me as I don't have a great track record of staying in the same place for too many years - too much of the wanderlust still in me!

And something that hasn't already been mentioned - I have found that critters tend to take over the observatory after a few months unvisited. In my case the corrector plate on the SCT has taken a serious battering from various bug juices and I had a nice colony of red backs settle in with many thousand ants who just loved the warmth of the electronics...

[BPO]

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

And something that hasn't already been mentioned - I have found that critters tend to take over the observatory after a few months unvisited. In my case the corrector plate on the SCT has taken a serious battering from various bug juices and I had a nice colony of red backs settle in with many thousand ants who just loved the warmth of the electronics...

Yep, that would be a concern in Australia. It's one issue I'm happy to say I know nothing about!

[BPO]

Originally Posted by DarkArts

I'm actually OK with the electronics/comms/IT side - I've managed a fair few mission critical systems including redundancy and automatic fail-over. I don't ever want to see another reliability block diagram or operational availability calculation (well, unless the job pays really, really well). I'm a systems engineer by profession.

A lot of guys design their systems with cost-saving a priority, and with a backyard observatory mindset. So long as you avoid false economies and you're always mindful of the actual location -- and the long drives -- things should go well.

Also, if you can afford a mount that is better than an EQ8 you may as well go ahead and install something like a PME, or even an ASA DDM. On the other hand, an EQ8 may do just as well so long as you're able to communicate and power it whenever you want to. The best gear is worthless if you can't do that.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by BPO

Also, if you can afford a mount that is better than an EQ8 you may as well go ahead and install something like a PME, or even an ASA DDM. On the other hand, an EQ8 may do just as well so long as you're able to communicate and power it whenever you want to. The best gear is worthless if you can't do that.

The EQ8 is great for a remote scope if you are using EQMOD. For some reason, Skywatcher have neglected to allow the Synscan handset to be controlled remotely from power-on, which is a shocking omission (please correct me if things have changed!), but EQMOD has no such issues.

One issue that can arise with the EQ8 is the loss of home position on power failure if the scope is not parked. The Auto-home feature is not an ascom feature so cannot be controlled through eqmod. Fortunately Skywatcher have put together a utility to do that (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...ns/topics/1114) but it would require that you remote access your observatory pc to run it.

I have never had to use it in anger, but I can imagine one day powering down the scope accidentally before parking it!!!!