Sorry not to have commented by this time Mike.
I am so green with envy I found it hard
to find the words to say how fantastic it looks
Not being an imager as I am, I still think
it look like a fantastic place to do Astronomy.
Love it.
Cheers
Sorry not to have commented by this time Mike.
I am so green with envy I found it hard
to find the words to say how fantastic it looks
Not being an imager as I am, I still think
it look like a fantastic place to do Astronomy.
Love it.
Cheers
Hi Ron thanks mate and yes it is a great place to do visual astronomy too, so much so that I am eager to get the housing for the 18" Dob done ASAP, it will be a 3m X 2m X 2.1m shed with double doors, to sit on that T-shaped concrete slab, the scope will roll out along the path to the isolated observing pad at the end and then roll away again at the end of the evening. I enjoy nothing more than having the imaging rig purring away, while observing faint fuzzies, preferably with company, under a truly dark sky, Nirvana!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamJL
congratulations, Mike! So great to follow along on this journey, thank you for taking us along for the ride.
The dome looks fantastic, and I hope you get the best out of it for many years to come.
Thanks for coming along for the ride Adam, glad you are having fun watching
Some new equipment arrived for the new observatory today...a Starlightxpress Oculus-Pro All-Sky camera and a TRIUS PRO-694 Midi Combi PRO Blue Edition set
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 01-06-2022 at 09:26 AM.
Sorry I completely missed this Mike, but what an interesting read it has been.
I guess lots more wows are in order. That really is something special. thanks for sharing the process. Cheers Ray
Cheers Rayzer, you can see a bit more about the property HERE just scroll down
Quote:
Originally Posted by mura_gadi
Snow line was low yesterday and the Brindabella's look great from here.
Be interesting to see if we have Australia's first private obs' that needs a de-icing system.
Awesome skies in the early hours even under the edge of the "glow" atm, with nearly zip light pollution up your way it must be stunning.
Looking forward to the AP results.
Wasn't much snow up at Tinderry yesterday, just a light covering, the attached photo is our neighbours place yesterday but they are 100m lower than us so we may have had a little more.
The skies are remarkable up at Eagleview if there is fog over Canberra as we are well above it
I don't visit this site often, so I just stumbled across this "post". Fantastic result and welcome to the world of Bortle 2 skies. We are almost neighbours. My observatory is 30km to the NE of yours at 800m. Happy snaps attached.
Can you tell me what you are going to power your set up with. I am running 500w solar into 390AH gel batteries and a 2kw inverter. It works, but I am not super confident the batteries will go all night. Grateful for any personal experience on that you can share. Cheers Peter
I don't visit this site often, so I just stumbled across this "post". Fantastic result and welcome to the world of Bortle 2 skies. We are almost neighbours. My observatory is 30km to the NE of yours at 800m. Happy snaps attached.
Can you tell me what you are going to power your set up with. I am running 500w solar into 390AH gel batteries and a 2kw inverter. It works, but I am not super confident the batteries will go all night. Grateful for any personal experience on that you can share. Cheers Peter
Hi Peter, yes you arent too far away at all and you have a mighty fine sounding setup yourself
If you want some fun, go back through this thread, you can find out everything I have and how I did it ..I am not operational yet..close though
Speaking of goodies Mathew, I moved most of my astro gear into the observatory control room on the weekend...so Ang is happy to have her clear, telescope free, lounge room back again
Speaking of goodies Mathew, I moved most of my astro gear into the observatory control room on the weekend...so Ang is happy to have her clear, telescope free, lounge room back again
Hi Ian, so far we have escaped the heaviest dumps, only some light-moderate dustings during the week, that have mostly melted by the afternoon, although some patches remain in the places that are in shade at midday. I expect this will change over the coming days and weeks though, as we move deeper into winter...
I now have to lay the 90mm PVC pipe, between the control room and observatory, to run power and Cat6 cables through and I just ordered a new telescope/dome/cameras control computer, a refurbished Dell Optiplex 9020 i7 SFF, 8G Ram, 256Gb SSD, running Windows10...should be here by the end of the week
Theeeen... it will be configuration time.... to get it all to talk and work.......
Used the clear sky time and a map of the SCP to accurately polar align, I have the AP polar scope pointing to within 1arc min of the pole or better
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 13-06-2022 at 08:35 AM.
I just love landing here and seeing all that you have done Mike. I really find your progress inspirational. I was probably going to lay around today as my scan tomorrow is all that I can think about but seeing you getting things done has me wondering what I should be attending to in the observatory.
Please keep posting your progress it is wonderful to see.
I just love landing here and seeing all that you have done Mike. I really find your progress inspirational. I was probably going to lay around today as my scan tomorrow is all that I can think about but seeing you getting things done has me wondering what I should be attending to in the observatory.
Please keep posting your progress it is wonderful to see.
This whole thread reads as a master class in how to do it right - so much care, consideration and great planning.
Curious your PC choice is a I7 with only 8 GB of RAM - I would have imagined 16 would be the minimum to run on? I keep my basic observatory controlled with an I7 and 16 GB RAM works pretty fine - but the image processing thing in the house is more of a beast - 8 core, water cooled, 64GB RAM 2 NVME drives and 4 SSDs and about 30 TB of storage.
A small hint - if you are running I presume CAT6E cable to your dome - then run two! If anything every goes wrong with one cable it is great to have redundancy on hand and costs very little! I ran power and cable rather separately - and used an Online UPS to power everything with its always filtered power, but I am a novice in power supply management - we are all on grid at home. Will you add a dehumidifier too?
And my goodness but your views - are to die for!!!
I am very curious about the software set used to control the gear in the dome versus image Processing - as there are so many options - how do you select the best amongst The SkyX, MaximDL, PHD2, CCDWare, N.I.N.A., SGP, ACP just to mention a few... All are viable candidates - but from your vast experience with your gear - what do you find will be the winners for you?
Looking forward to first light. I wonder if M8 is up 
to get it all to talk and work...
