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Hi, coming back after a long intermittent pause ...

Rainer

By Rainer
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Rainer

Rainer

Posted
Posted

Hi,

My name is Rainer and I do live more or less in the geopgraphic center of Mexico, roughly 22° 08' North and 101° 02' West.

After a long intermittent pause of maybe 7-8 years in astronomy I am back into it. I did Astronomy only every 3-4 weeks as that was the possibility for me as I lived away from the Observatory.

Last year I retired from my day job which was about 420km south of where I do live now. I moved to the house where I have the Observatory.

In April 2018 I adopted two new iOptron CEM 120 EC2. They have the serial number GB20001 yes one ? and GB 20002 yes two ?.

This are the very first two mounts of this series of iOptron. In April 2018 I had the chance to meet all iOptron people at the NEAIC and NEAF 2018 show in Suffern, New York. Also I met two other guys who bought the CEM 120 mount.

Each mount carries 3 tgelescopes and 54 kg of counterweigths.

My telescope collection is

Mewlon 250S 3200mm, SKY 90 500mm, FSQ 85ED 450mm, TOA 130 1000mm, FS-78 630mm and an AstroTech 8" RC 1600mm

Thanks for looking and reading. Hope to learn more here and if allowed to transmit my experience of over 18 years in this hobby

Rainer

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Rainer

Rainer

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30 minutes ago, Floater said:

Welcome. That is an arsenal of telescopes!

Hope you have lots of opportunities to use them in your retirement. ?

Hi Gordon,

Thanks and yes. IN this area of Mexico I have many days a year ( I guess maybe 150 to 200) where the night sky is clear. Also in Winter time like now the humidity stays low until maybe 2 - 3 am.

Once I had 3 weeks with no more humidity the 8% ?

I need to make a plan what scope do I use when ?

I make Solar imaging, DSO, my speciality are the Arp Galaxies at 3200mm focal length and spectroscopy with a LISA from Shelyak. At the moment working together with a University in Mexico City and of course Beta teter for iOptron. The mounts are 95% usable and still ahve some little bugs which we are ironing out.

The EC2 has encoders on RA and DEC as well as a temperature sensor and a barometer on the main board for atmospheric refraction compensation. As usual when such mounts touch the market there is always a bit of beta testing.

All in all it has never been so easy to get round stars at 3200mm focal length and 10, 15 or 30 minutes exposure times. Necessary for the Arp Galaxies as there are some really faint fuzzies ?

Also the solar tracking rate os so good that I have made timer lapses with a minimal drift in RA. Before having this mounts I needed to guide on the Sun with a solar guider I developed myself. The Japanese HINODE was too expensive for me and so I used an Arduino and Photoresistors.

BTW, I am a tinkerer ? and like to develop many things.

Rainer

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JRM

JRM

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Hello Rainer, welcome to the lounge and welcome back to the night sky hobby so to speak. very nice equipment to view with to if 

I must say, I envy the humidity levels too, do you need some snow, we got tons of it here ;)

Rick M

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Rainer

Rainer

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11 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

My god do you need a license for those? incredible, I'm willing to bet from your location you have beautiful dark skies and sunshine year round!.

Hi and thanks.

Well I have a suburban sky Bortle class 5.

Look at the screenshots.

Rainer 

OR14_bortle_class5_SQM.JPG

OR14_bortle_class5.JPG

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Rainer

Rainer

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15 minutes ago, JRM said:

Hello Rainer, welcome to the lounge and welcome back to the night sky hobby so to speak. very nice equipment to view with to if 

I must say, I envy the humidity levels too, do you need some snow, we got tons of it here ;)

Rick M

Thank You Rick.

Yes we could need some snow as the water is sometimes rare here ?

Rainer

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Rainer

Rainer

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13 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I'm not actually sure how many telescopes I have, but since seeing these photos I've suddenly come to the conclusion that however many it is, it's not actually that excessive :D

James

Hi James,

Well two of them with the prior mounts were collecting dust which where the SKY 90 and the FS-78. The SKY 90 is now equipped with a QUARK chromosphere H-alpha filter and the FS-78 I am going to use it for chasing satellites with the new software SkyTrack https://heavenwatch.ca/index.html

Is it allowed to put links to software packages for Astronomy ?

Rainer

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Rainer

Rainer

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6 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

Well Rainer, you have one almighty set-up there. Oh and a very warm welcome to the Lounge :)

Steve

Thanks Steve. I built my Observatory in 2018. After 3 - 4 months of planning it was built in 10 weeks and I was able to move in in September 2008.

Unfortunately I was only able to use it every 3-4 weeks for short weekends from thursday to Sunday and as everywhere in the world not always every weekend was clear.

Now having retired from chasing the daily Fish and Chips the situation is better and it has beomce a 24/7 job. Now I feel 24 hours a day are not enough ?

Here you can see the construction from beginning to end. Sorry for the small images but it was the time when a 1024 x 728 pixel monitor was big ?

http://rainerehlert.com/OR14html/

Rainer

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bob-c

bob-c

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Hi Rainer,

Nice to see you here on SGL, looking forward to your posts .

I am one of your Cem 120 forum members and have learned a lot from your posts on there and of other members posts since I joined. [Thanks for the invite on the CN forum]

I have the 120 ec version which is my very first eq mount. It has been slow for me with the weather here in the UK but things are now looking good  and I have managed to get a few images with this mount, [all unguided at the moment] . I have great hopes for it and am very pleased with it.

Best regards Bob.

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sloz1664

sloz1664

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10 hours ago, Rainer said:

Thanks Steve. I built my Observatory in 2018. After 3 - 4 months of planning it was built in 10 weeks and I was able to move in in September 2008.

Unfortunately I was only able to use it every 3-4 weeks for short weekends from thursday to Sunday and as everywhere in the world not always every weekend was clear.

Now having retired from chasing the daily Fish and Chips the situation is better and it has beomce a 24/7 job. Now I feel 24 hours a day are not enough ?

Here you can see the construction from beginning to end. Sorry for the small images but it was the time when a 1024 x 728 pixel monitor was big ?

http://rainerehlert.com/OR14html/

Rainer

That's one hell of a construction Rainer and I admire your technical & construction skills. I too have retired from the rat race and like yourself I can immerse myself 24/7 in our wonderful obsession hobby :)

Steve

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Alan White

Alan White

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Hello Rainer,
Welcome to SGL.
Wow that is quite some set up you have.
Also thank you for posting the pictures, I will show them to my wife to show my 4 scopes is not excessive! ?
All those clear skies, wonderful, look forward to your images being posted.

 

 

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Saganite

Saganite

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Hi Rainer, welcome to the SGL. :smiley:

You have a fantastic array of equipment, but what I really envy is the number of observing nights and the quality of the atmosphere, that you enjoy, it must be heaven ! 

Look forward to your posts and images.

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Rainer

Rainer

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Hi and Thanks everybody for the welcome.

This is my third Observatory. What started as a simple concrete column continued with a wooden hut and now the end id this brick and mortar Observatory.

The anecdote is that when I met the architect who sold me the house I asked him if I could see the house at night before taking a decision to buy it or not. You should have seen his face. He thought I am some kind of Night worker  ?

Then when I was there, I was lucky and had a clear night, I looked up from the backyard garden and told him, OK, I buy it ?

With him we planned the Observatory building. For him it was a unique experience as he had never done anything similar.

regards Rainer

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Rainer

Rainer

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10 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

This hobby is very forgiving of "long pauses" ... most of the sky is still as it was when you left.

OH no, it has changed lately. Since 2,3 or 4 years the winter skies have been worse. Also I have never seen so much Sun and Moon halos lately as well as Sun dogs.

For me that is a sign of changing climate ?

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