A Romanian Observatory

[jimao22]

Thank you Chris.

That's the bag for the telescope cover. Is empty, don't worry, is just full of air...

[SnakeyJ]

Cristian - fantastic job, absolutely huge in comparison to my build and very jealous of the space.

That pier looks really nicely made and with the monster foundation almost bomb proof - Im going to take your photo to an engineer friend and see if he can knock me one up to similar design.

Clear skies and enjoy your new obs - Jake

[gary1968]

A fine job, you shouuld be very happy in there......

[jimao22]

Thank you all !

Indeed, I spend almost all clear nights inside my observatory, I'm revenging on all those lost nights while building it.

Perhaps I will continue my tread with automation, when I will have to show you something.

[Newfie]

What are you mounting on top of that foundation ! are they relocating the 200" Palomar telescope..................... very impressive

[jimao22]

As I told you at some point in the past, I will continue this topic telling you about the improvements made in order to automatize my observatory.  

Last night I finally succeed to do this, so here is the story.

So, the thing is our hobby is not just a money consumer but is a time consumer as well. To enjoy the results, we need to spend hours into the dark and cold, away from family, adding extra fatigue to the daily fatigue and stress - so on the long run, it could be dangerous, even if it do not look so. For me, the answer to these problems was found long time ago - a remote controlled and (fully) automatized observatory.

This is a very complex project but I put all my efforts from last 2 years to achieve this goal.

There are 3 levels / types this kind of observatories:

(1) a remote controlled observatory but without any automation - very useful when you want to avoid the heat/cold from outside, mosquitoes in the summer time. Is quite simple to do this, with some simple software - is the way I did before having this observatory. I needed for that (according with my set-up) EQMOD, a planetary software (TheSky6), the acquisition software (MaximDL) and a software for remote control - VPN, TeamViewer or Remote Desktop (I used all but I got stick with TeamViewer)  

(2) an automatized observatory which tough need the man presence at the beginning and the end of a session, to open / close all the devices, to open / close the roof, to keep an eye on sky for weather changes and so on. This kind of work need some extra software to coordinate all the previous software - CCD Commander, CCD Autopilot, ACP or MAxPilote. To make things work is a bit tricky but with a bit of skill, patience and persistence can be done

(3) a fully automatized observatory - a system working without man presence, taking decisions whenever is needed (weather changing, power failure, internet connection broken, humidity increasing, so on), starting and ending session fully automatized. 

This is the level where I want to go, and now, when I write this, I am at the midway.

I will tell you the story for what I did and I will keep you informed about the next improvements I will make.

Hope again my English will be good enough to understand me and to not make me look like a fool.  

[Joves]

You look pretty clever to me... And your English is absolutely fine! Not a fool in the slightest!!

Well done on your work so far!!

[jimao22]

One of the first issues we should take care on this undertaking is the guiding and the plate solving. Both have high importance in an automatized system, especially after a meridian flip.

Using EQMOD, TheSky6 and MaximDL and PinPoint, we need a model for the sky. This can be  produced by plate-solving some shots on each of quadrants and synchronizing them in EQMOD.

I had problems on this because although I obtained very accurate results on one side of the meridian, the results was disastrous for the other half of the sky. I tried to resolve this by using Astro-Tortilla but somehow this program wasn't working for me and after some unsuccessful shots, I aborted that path. So back to PinPoint, I tried one more time using some different approach. I made pictures of the sky, starting from near Polaris on the East side, 3-4 shots on the same part of the sky even scattered and then start to shot on the West side near Polaris also. Each picture on the western side was taken (and astrometric resolved, of-course) by slowly increasing the angular distance between them, having in mind the error between real position and resolved position to be all the time in 20-30' limit. After that, I went back on the East side of the pier adding extra points and with 30-40 points I have a good sky model for at least few months.

[jimao22]

The guiding is a tricky part and should be handled with care. Depending on the guiding system and the mount (some mounts do not need any guiding -  not mine), the system can brake after some clouds passing, or can have strange behavior after meridian flip, or cannot find guiding stars alone (especially when using OAG with some not very sensitive guiding camera). Anyway, a good polar alignment, a seting of 5 sec exposures for guiding and a proper adjusted mount with care for differential flexure will solve most of the problems. I will get back to this in the future.

[jimao22]

Some other part should be available when setting-up an automate system is the focuser. I mean a motorized focuser... Motorized with a stepper motor and the software taking care of this - MaximDL or FocusMax. 

This is important because during the night, the temperature is dropping down and the focus is slightly moving. For a fast system, this can be a problem. The Critical Focus Zone (CFZ) for a fast system is around few microns (see http://www.wilmslowastro.com/software/formulae.htm#CFZ ). My system have a stepper motor from LUNATICO ASTRONOMIA controlled by the SELETEK Platypus controller. This (SELETEK) is an amazing piece of hardware of my set-up and for the fully automatized system, it have a very important role - the focuser control in this case is secondary. 

I will explain later on this, because is important.

Coming back to focuser, the focus is good to be checked after each exposure. I am using MaxPilote (freeware) as "conductor" for all my system. This program have an option to select a star to focus on (near the zone where you want to make exposures by clicking it on the planetarium and just adding it on the MaxPilote - see the picture). Both programs can be used for focus with MaxPilote - FocusMax and MaximDL.

So, bottom line, because we cannot be there to adjust the focuser or to use some Bahtinov mask, we need to use instead a program to do the job for us. For those who intend to try this, is not very complicated, just some exercise needed.

[Gina]

Coming along nicely - good work

[jimao22]

I said before that SELETEK Platypus is a very important piece in this jigsaw. This is the third generation of this kind of controller, made in Spain. This one have 3 ports (previous Armadilo version had only 2) and the possibility to be accessed by Ethernet, with an IP address. These ports can be used for different jobs - moving a motorized focuser, controlling a rotator or a home-made filter wheel, or can be used to control devices powered in 12V/max 1A per port or some relays.

I use this device to control my motorized focuser on MAIN port and to control 4 relays on each of the other ports (EXP and THIRD - so 8 relays all togheter) - function called Pin-by-Pin. 

This device along with his functions allow me to open / close the roof of my observatory without any computer functioning (the only condition is that router and Platypus to be powered all the time) and allow me to open/ restart my computer from inside the observatory.

The pictures show you the Platypus and the ports(1), the new Platypus and the old Armadilo side by side, to see the difference in size(2), the drawing for connections to control relays or other devices with EXP or THIURD ports (my case) and the graphic interface for the Pin-by-Pin function as it show on the computer.

[jimao22]

But for a fully automatized observatory, a function for remote open/close lid or remote started computer is not enough. A lot more is involved. 

My system, as I considered after a long judgement have the following parts:

(1) - a computer inside the observatory - the brain for all system - exist 

(2) - an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) - to ensure the surviving of the whole system when we have a power failure or other kind of accidents - exist

(3) - a 12V cc power supply, well filtered and stabilized, to ensure the power for all the astronomical devices (CCD, mount, filter wheel, router, so on) - exist

(4) - a main controller, controlled over the internet, to command some relays (is the SELETEK in my case) - exist

(5) - the astronomical system (mount, telescope, flat-filed panel, dew-heaters, CCD, filter-wheel, etc) - exist, of course

(6) - an electrical motor for the roof - exist (see the film from the previous page of this topic)

(7) - a router for external communication - exist

(8) - a weather station to control the system according with weather - DO NOT EXIST

Because I do not have money to buy a weather station (not a simple one but an interactive one) and I need to save some money for astro devices, I decided i make myself a weather station, starting from an ARDUINO UNO r3 controller. This will be the second controller in my whole system and I will have a third one, to control the system when a power failure occur.

The diagram for my automatized system is attached bellow.

[jimao22]

The weather station is a project in progress. I will speak about this a little bit later. 

The system can work automatic without the weather station but is unsafe to do this. Anyway, some other parts should work until the station will be ready.

I made 2 diagrams showing the way the roof motor worked before (just a simple push-button, impulse type) and how it look and work now. The relay box for the first port of SELETEK is ready (see attachment) and is connected to the motor like in the second diagram. A friend of mine, having almost the same equipment, made a similar automation. He spoke with Jaime Alemany, the LUNATICO ASTRONOMIA owner in order to make some scripts in Visual Basic. These scripts command the SELETEK Pin-byPin interface as follow:

To open the roof

PIN 2 active (relay 1 closed). This is like a general switch for the motor drive. It remain close all the time the roof is open.

[jimao22]

(sorry, I sent the message unfinished - I will continue here)

wait few seconds and then PIN 3 active (relay 2 closed) for 2 seconds and then PIN 3 inactive (relay 2 open). This will emulate the impulse of the manual switch from the first diagram, and it will open the roof.

To close the roof:

PIN 2 is still active so relay 1 is closed. But we have another command from the second script which will appeal the PARK command from EQMOD, so the telescope is starting to park first of all. Then the system will wait for 30-40 seconds for the telescope to be parked no matter how far is from that position and then the PIN 3 is active for 2 seconds again and this will emulate again the push-button to close this time the roof. The system will wait for another 30-40 seconds for the roof to be closed and finally the PIN 2 will became inactive (relay 1 open), so the system is shut down.

[jimao22]

The way I made the wiring in the second diagram allow me to make manual command to the motor no matter the SELETEK is working or not, totally independent by the automate system. I need this when I want to open the roof to do some tests or some repairs to the roof or to the observatory. Is good to have a back-up on every situation, just in case.

More about my system next days.   

[jimao22]

The "automatized" (so far)  system  is working like this:

1. I am connecting to SELETEK via network using the IP address. The remote computer (viewer) have installed the SELETEK drivers and program, so I have from inside the house the interface like I am using SELETEK from inside the observatory

2. from PIN BY PIN panel, I am connecting pin 2 and 3 to open the roof 

3. from PIN BY PIN panel, I start the computer  (pin 4)

4. I start TeamViewer from inside and I connect to the server (obsy computer)

5. I start MaxPilote, set everything for the night session

6. connect the rest of the programs via MaxPilote (MaximDL, TheSky6, FocusMax)

7. start the session

Everything without living the house.

Now, the weather station make everything more safer and working a bit different. We have some sensors there, and the most important of all is the Infrared sensor (MLX 90614). This sensor is reading the temperature of the sky.

For those who are not knowing much about this, the IR sky temperature is negative if the sky is clear,  no matter the air temperature is. As an example, I have an IR picture of the sky, made with my FLIR Thermacam camera, attached here. The temperature showed is -40 degree Celsius because this is the limit for my camera, but I know from those who have better cameras that the sky temperatures can drop to -60 degree Celsius.  

So, we have 2 ways to determine if the sky is clear or not (I will have to check which is the best): (1) to measure the sky temperature or (2) to determine the difference between sky temperature and the air temperature (when cloudy, this temperatures are very close and the difference tent to be zero).  

An IR picture with the roof of my obsy and a part of the sky.

An IR picture of my whole set-up in a winter night. You can see the dew heaters working around the corrector plate, finder-guider and laser pointer. Down bellow is the 12V DC power source weatherproof and the SELETEK on the top of it. 

[SnakeyJ]

Some fascinating and really useful information on the automation of your observatory here and although I'm not contemplating anything as high tech for myself at the moment, I keep coming back to read the developments and learn a little more!     Very good and practical ideas on evaluating sky quality and it will be interesting to hear how this develops.

The thermal imagery look very useful - expensive cameras, though I'd love to borrow one and might see if they are available for hire locally.    I can see that the weather station will provide general conditions to support mount parking and roof closure, though for imaging purposes might an axially mounted SQM give a better idea of conditions in the area you want to image?    Feedback from your guide camera will also give a reasonable idea, though you probably want a broader view to judge if conditions may improve before aborting a run and shutting things down for the night.

[jimao22]

Thank you all for your kind words.

Your idea, Jake, with SQM on the scope is interesting and it wort a try sometime in the future. I have seen that someone on this forum made a SQM Arduino based as well. I will take a look carefully when the "mystery" around ARDUINO will evaporate (because I have to admit I am a totally newbie with ARDUINO). 

Back to weather station, the second important sensor is the temperature sensor (air temperature). This will check (with the IR sensor) if we have a clouds  and along with the humidity sensor - the emergence of the dew. For this purpose, we have the sensor DHT22 - a combined sensor for humidity and temperature.

The third sensor is the light sensor. This is necessary to estimate if the day is coming or if the Moon light is to bright for taking a proper picture, so on. Of course, we can check this via planetarium software but as I said, is good to have all kind of back-ups to an automate system. This because when something wrong occurs and we are not around, is possible to have not a second chance.

The last sensor is the rain sensor. Of course, when rain start and the other sensors fails, is possible to be to late but we must have such a sensor like a final back-up.

The station have as inputs the signals coming from sensors and as outputs some relays, operated by ARDUINO when some limits are reached by sensors. Actually, one of relay could be the same relay from PIN nr 3 (SELETEK), connected properly to the ARDUINO. I have few ideas about the way this can be resolved and when I'll reach that point, I will explain everything here.

- First relay will produce an impulse to close the roof / or, as an alternative  (even better), ARDUINO will appeal the second VisualBasic routine explained before - the closing sequence (park and close the roof).

- Second relay will start the dew heaters when necessary (condition of humidity and temperature for the dew to appear - a simple formula easy to be found on the internet).

[jimao22]

The third controller in my system (another ARDUINO) will take care of the system when the power fail. As you can see in the block-diagram, two magnetic sensors and a relay (which is working as a push-button) are the inputs for the controller. The magnetic sensors came from the end-positions of the roof, telling to ARDUINO that the roof reached the end-position and is not stopped by accident somewhere in the middle of the run. Also, this will tell us (and to ARDUINO) that the roof is OPEN and CLOSE when is open and close and not the other way around. So we cannot be fooled by the system and give some wrong commands to it, as is opening the roof when rain came or power down (!!!).

About the last scenario, when power down, we have a relay, normal-close type (closed when no power on the secondary) connected to the main power line, so when we have power, nothing happens but when power down, the contact is established and this impulse is lead to ARDUINO which appeal the second VB routine - park and close the roof.

Even if it seems to be complicated, I ensure you is not. I have ZERO background in automation, networking and electronics but I am very confident in few months I will have the system ready and fully operational. 

So, if you liked the idea, your comments are welcomed. 

[jimao22]

Hi,

We had a very bad astro-weather here in Romania, it was cloudy almost all the nights this year, so mean while I did some small steps forward with my automation.

Working on it, I cleared up a lot of the path aiming this target.

One of the best things found is that SELETEK PLATYPUS is an amazing controller. As I said before, it have 3 ports - MAIN, EXP and THIRD.

MAIN is for the focuser alone.

​EXP and THIRD have the possibility to connect 4 relays each or to control and power same time some devices with 12V/max 1 amp per port.

I did connected all 4 relays to the EXP port to control the general power for the roof (RL-1), the impulse power for the roof (RL-2), the power for the observatory computer (RL-3 - now the computer can be switch-on remote, via SELETEK) and the 12V power source (RL-4). This power source is for the mount, the camera, the filter-wheel, the dew-heater, the flat-field pannel, so on. 

What I found is that THIRD allow INPUTS as well. Is a big improvement for my automation, because everything became less complicated - the second ARDUINO controller is no more necessary. The function of it is under the SELETEK control now.  I will use the INPUT pins for the magnetic sensors used to confirm the roof end positions (2 of it), to introduce the unsafe signal from the ARDUINO weather station  (one of it) and to use the GNS (Good Night System) software from LUNATICO Astronomia (the last one). Having this in mind, the diagram for port connections became as in the picture bellow.

For the safety of the site, I use now a manual safety lock on the inside of the observatory. But using the observatory from a remote place, I cannot unlock this latch so I need to find an automatic way to do this. I found an electromagnetic latch and I will connect it on same relay with the impulse power for the roof, because the latch is working on impulse alike. 

After all these changes, the block-diagram for my automation is looking like this:

All I need to do now is to finish the ARDUINO weather station - it will take a while because of the lack of time and knowledge. But I hope until end of May everything will be set and I will show you a short film with everything working all together.

[Jumans]

Hi There I am looking for plans to make a pier, your dropbox link does not work can you create a new link.

 

Cheers

 

Jumans

[jimao22]

It is a while since I did not posted here, and a lot of things happens till the point the project evolved at the (almost) desired stage.  

After the 2014-2015 bad season, because of the heavy rains and blizzards during the winter, I decided to make the brush sealing more dense. In fact, I doubled the brushes all around the roof but the undesired effect was the motor was unable to do the job properly. The necessary force needed for the motor to move the roof became to high and the safety system embedded into the motor automatization make the roof to move into the opposite direction. So the risk to have an open roof over night was to high. On the other hand,  the sealing was very good, so the sealing brushes should remain there.

The problem was solved with one of my good friends help. I had a very old sliding gate motor - very powerful but totally broken as electronic parts. So my friend, who is a wizard in electronics and automation, made for this motor a brand new programmable controller, from the scratch, with the possibility to use the motor in manual mode (manual - meaning push a physical button to open/close the roof) or automatic (meaning use the SELETEK screen buttons to do the same thing).

During the time Matei (my friend) used his wand to make the "new" motor to run, I did the dirty job to make the motor stand. I used some ready made metal plates with lot of holes in it, assembling them like a MECANO toy for children to do the stand. Everything was instaled INSIDE the observatory this time, which was a better solution anyway.

 

  

      

[jimao22]

When the job was done, the new motor worked as a dream. I should buy a rack, because the system was rack and pinion (not with belt like the old motor) and fix it on the inner side of the roof, but this was a trivial task. 
The film attached show you how the new system run in both manual and computer controlled mode.

Film with new motor

 

[Shibby]

Funnily enough, I was just reading your thread last night before your recent update   Fantastic looking observatory you've got there, I'm very impressed.

Glad you got the new motor sorted, but if you still have any trouble with water ingress you could also try increasing the overlap by using larger fascia board around the roof.