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  #201  
Old 31-05-2022, 10:05 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JA View Post
Great stuff - congratulations Mike.
I love the hatch door with its spacecraft / ship vibe!

Best
JA
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb View Post
Very nice Looking forward to first light. I wonder if M8 is up
Quote:
Originally Posted by AstroViking View Post
I have to say, Mike, that is one very, very impressive setup you have there.

For beginners like me, your setup is something we can aspire to (dream of??).

I can't wait to see the images you capture under those amazing skies.

Cheers,
V
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek Klepp View Post
Great Results Mike I am really enjoying this thread.
Cheers guys, getting there now

Mike
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  #202  
Old 31-05-2022, 10:12 AM
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astroron (Ron)
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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
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  #203  
Old 31-05-2022, 06:00 PM
AdamJL
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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.
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  #204  
Old 31-05-2022, 09:59 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Originally Posted by astroron View Post
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 View Post
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

Mike
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  #205  
Old 31-05-2022, 10:07 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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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
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  #206  
Old 02-06-2022, 03:12 AM
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Shiraz (Ray)
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Wow, what an exercise.

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
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  #207  
Old 02-06-2022, 06:45 AM
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mura_gadi (Steve)
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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.
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  #208  
Old 02-06-2022, 07:56 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiraz View Post
Wow, what an exercise.

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 View Post
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
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  #209  
Old 02-06-2022, 08:35 PM
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TraKtorman (Peter)
Peter

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Nice Work!

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
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  #210  
Old 02-06-2022, 10:39 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Originally Posted by TraKtorman View Post
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

The full set of construction photos, so far, is here: https://pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/...ew_observatory

Mike

Last edited by strongmanmike; 03-06-2022 at 06:52 AM.
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  #211  
Old 03-06-2022, 12:59 PM
matlud (Mathew)
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Congratulations Mike! The Obs is looking so great and always exciting to get some new goodies in the post 👍👍
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  #212  
Old 08-06-2022, 03:32 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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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
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  #213  
Old 10-06-2022, 04:06 PM
I.C.D (Ian)
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Originally Posted by strongmanmike View Post
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 Mike how much snow have you had so far
Ian
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  #214  
Old 10-06-2022, 08:40 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Hi Mike how much snow have you had so far
Ian
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...

Mike
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  #215  
Old 11-06-2022, 06:16 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Sunset to sunrise, great night.... (-5C & 75% humidity, very light breeze only this morning..brisk brrrr but invigorating )
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  #216  
Old 11-06-2022, 12:22 PM
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Beautiful
Cheers
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  #217  
Old 13-06-2022, 06:44 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Another clear night on the way....

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
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  #218  
Old 13-06-2022, 07:14 AM
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xelasnave
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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.

Alex
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  #219  
Old 13-06-2022, 07:28 AM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Originally Posted by xelasnave View Post
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.

Alex
Ah thanks Alex

Good luck with the scan, hope it is good news

Mike
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  #220  
Old 13-06-2022, 11:08 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
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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?
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