Commissioning of new roll-off in Provence - finally!

[MikeP]

Bacon on the menu at Olly's?

Mike

[perfrej]

Yes, there was bacon, but I never have it in the morning...

/per

[ollypenrice]

I think we'll settle for isolated concrete base and 50 kV on all metal parts. One sniff and you're history - boar, boar-disguise or whatever...

/per

Boar, boar-disguise, resident astronomer and landowner... 

(The Belgian racing driver and land speed record holder (19th century) Camille Jenatzy was accidentally shot and killed by his friends while impersonating a boar on a hunting party. Just thght I'd pass that on!)

Olly

[ollypenrice]

Hi

well wait till you see my boar disguise

Harry

I thought you were wearing it, Harry!

Olly

[gingergeek]

Awesome work guys, I'm truly jealous and if I had the cash I would supply equipment but for now I can only dream.

[perfrej]

Well, Geek, we all have our own curves of achievement. I do not know how old you are, but you'll get there, family and wallet willing

For me, half of the fun is the design, the technical stuff and the building, so I put a lot of energy into that.

/per

[yesyes]

talking about technical stuff...

now that I've got my breath back after seeing these photos... Would you mind providing some more info on the electronics you used / built? I'm particularly interested how you (reliably) decide whether the sky is good enough to open the roof.

[Fordos Moon]

Blown away by this thread - amazing stuff guys!

[Sp@ce_d]

talking about technical stuff...

now that I've got my breath back after seeing these photos... Would you mind providing some more info on the electronics you used / built? I'm particularly interested how you (reliably) decide whether the sky is good enough to open the roof.

Yes this is a very cool thread!

I wouldn't be surprised if it's something like the AAG_CloudWatcher. Having just installed mine I was blown away just how good they are.

What a fantastic setup in a great location Per. You must be pretty chuffed with it now you're seeing results... Well done

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[catman161]

This is truly jaw dropping! What an amazing setup! You must all be so pleased. Really inspiring

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[perfrej]

OK, the observatory uses the AAG Cloudwatcher with anemometer, hooked up to my system. My system uses the Astrobox project (there's a thread under DIY about it) which controls all power, th efocus stepper motor, USB, dew and roof. It also delivers ambient pressure so that my mount can get proper refraction parameters.

All systems run ACP with a specially written weather driver which gets weather parameters and safe flag from my Astrobox. ACP opens the roof when cloudwatcher signals safe, and the Astrobox signals safe to the others when the roof is open. If the weather turns unsafe, my system's ACP will immediately close the roof upon my telescope parking, which in turn signals unsafe to the other, who's ACP installations immediately park their scopes - just in time before the roof comes slowly sliding past

That's the setup, and apart from French Quality Internet Connection, or FQIC, the system has proven very reliable.

Now, moon, please go away!

All the best,

Per

[ollypenrice]

Orange will be hearing from me. What an exasperating  organization. (Odd use of the term...) When you ring their service line the first thing you hear is a woman letting out an impassioned and suggestive gasp reminiscent of Meg Ryan in the restaurant scene.* She then breaks into song. After talking to machines for a while you then wait for ten minutes for a technician. You are asked if the second light on the router is green and when it is they break into a mantra about the fault being your computer. Miraculous, you say, All five computers suffered a simultaeous fault. But you said this the last time, the time before that, the time before that, and that, and that and that and it was always either your router or your nextwork SO COULD WE SKIP ALL THIS AND GET TO THE NEXT STAGE PLEASE??  You know, the stage where you say Oh yes it's our network... again.

Then you get to take the router (ironcally called a Livebox, contrary to all medical evidence) back to the 'boutique' an hour's drive away. Here it would have been a good idea for them to install beds to accomadate those waitng in the queue. Chairs would be OK for shorter waits but not in an Orange 'boutique.' You then ask about an improved service called Orange Pro and, yes, it exists but not in this 'boutique.' You have to go to a bigger 'boutique' a further hour away by car. (How can this be?? This is the Information Age. What can they possibly have at the other boutique that this boutique doesn't have? 

Olly

* Should you have had the immense misfortune not to have seen Meg Ryan in the restaurant scene here she is;

 

 It's sad to think that she is now reduced to answering the phone for Orange...

[swag72]

It sounds like an on going battle over there - Have you considered anything like a satellite connection for the internet? My parents have recently changed from the aged Telefonica Spanish telephony system to a new fandangled satellite system. It would appear now that in comparison to us they have lightening speed (anything over 0.5MB is lightening as we struggle on our rural Spanish network) and it seems hugely more reliable than the seemingly constant drop offs that we experience.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, we're talking about it. Maybe having two systems for failsafe. 

Olly

[perfrej]

I think we should look into 4G as a backup. The cell systems are usually pretty robust. Satellite latency is not fun to deal with, and many of the "satellite" services actually use the phone line for one direction, again making it prone to orange colour faults...

/per

[Tinker1947]

My own BT Broadband connection was plagued by drop outs, they sent a Engineer he played about for a bit with the bundle of wires at the properties entry point (there were quite  few as i used to have 2 phone lines) anyway he pronounced it had fixed it  and away he went, they duly changed me £99 for this service, with in a week his magic departed and were back at dropouts maybe 2-3 times a day maybe it might run for a week, so back on the phone the help line guys says he will monitor it. I decide its my time to have a go, purchased some bits and disconnected all there wiring couple of extensions decapitated, installed a mains connection for the router, a ADSL/Phone socket installed, power line adapter to my Office/Bit of Space, the outcome no disconnections still slow speed (2.5Mbits) download but it was sorted, phone the helpline guy after a week had passed he run his check and refunded the £99 this off-set the money spent fixing it, I love a picture this is the work just waiting on suitable piece of carved wood to box it all in.....So for your set-up Olly if it isn't a single point of access then extensions can be a real pain try not to have any....

[Gonzo]

So that's the secret robotic obs, wow, very nice. No doubt I'll have some questions....

[mhard26339]

Great project and well done to all concerned!!

Regards

Mike

[perfrej]

Oh, thank you! Rained in currently...

/per

[Blazar]

Stunning solution x stunning setting x stunning equipment = Stunning results (greater astronomical satisfaction).

The perfect sum of all your hard work.

Enjoy (and can we have some more picks when the rain clears...please) :-)

[perfrej]

Thanks!

We also had another network outage. Olly changes Livebox every few weeks and Orange keeps them coming as they break down. Actually, we could call it a trade-in endeavor; Deadbox for Livebox...

/per

[JohnC64]

Per,

Currently running a Satellite system to get broadband at home and they work well.  20M Down and 6M up.

Using these people, but I guess there must be suppliers in France who could fit it.

http://www.avonlinebroadband.com/order-your-package/

John

Edit:

The only issue is maybe ping latency which is about 750ms. But as the observatory is autonomous its not as if you need real time control.
(even with 750ms latency, i still manage Skype calls).

[perfrej]

Yes, John, we're looking into that as a compliment. The service in question has no data limitation during nighttime, which is good. We do shuffle 25 GB per night easily between the four scopes...

/per

[Gina]

I'm getting so fed up with my so called broadband that satellite is beginning to look pretty attractive

[perfrej]

Satellite systems do have their merits, but also their drawbacks in terms of propagation delay - looong way up there and back. TCP is not well suited for that level of latency so it may well perform unsatisfactory. The systems we use up in the Polar regions all use either special TCP parameters or some other intermediate and hidden protocol for the satellite part. Often they include fake responses to heartbeats and similar, just like the cell networks do on the planet itself.

/per