A story of setting up a remote obsy...

[Datalord]

It's been a while since I posted about my adventures in astro, but it also coincides with lots of clouds and waiting for an opportunity to set up my gear correctly.

Long story short, in the beginning of 2018 I was about to move house in UK to a darker spot, but it fell through. I decided to go remote and laid deposit with E-eye in Spain. That pier was ready in December, and with a few mishaps on Spanish customs, I finally took hold of the spot in February.

As you can see, my car was fully packed. Amazingly, a Nissan GT-R can hold a 12" RC + all the extra stuff needed to make everything work. We (my wife took the trip with me) did have to pack our clothes in soft bags to squeeze them in, but we managed quite nicely. From Brighton to Fregenal we drove the 2200 kilometers with an overnight stop in Rouen and Villadolid.

Arriving at E-eye on a Sunday, they were ready with one of their lovely houses where I got the keys for the observatory and help with any tools I hadn't brought along. The road up to the observatory, however, was a less than optimal uneven gravel road, so I only took my car up there one time. If you ever go there, I strongly suggest use of an SUV.

The observatories are laid out side by side on a high ground far from the nearest city. Fregenal de la Sierra itself is small, only 4.000 citizens and the site really has some of the best skies I have seen. The observatories are really nice, professionally built and all cabling and infrastructure is well done. The José's (three of them, much to my confusion) were all super helpful whenever I needed something.

It took me about a day to get my gear set up in a reasonable useful way, so I could start calibrating everything. Having had it all run from home gave me some assurance it wasn't going to be too difficult, but as we all know, there are 1.000 things that need to go right. The secondnight gave me access to stars until about 0100, so I had to close down and head to sleep.

Third night, between Tuesday and Wednesday, I started sweating, because it was raining during the day and clouds were everywhere, while I still had some work to do to get my focus set right between my camera and the OAG camera. At 2 in the morning clouds disappeared and I spent the evening in the observatory doing all the nitty gritty. I went back when I suddenly realized I was frozen to the core, shaking badly and I had to sit in front of the fireplace before heading to bed.

Wednesday I had some help setting up a Cloudwatcher and get the controls for the roof working. Shoutout to Steve (Brit setting up 12 scopes at once!) who was there and helped me out with the equipment I missed, as well as 2 of the José's. Everything was working and since the clouds stayed away, I used the evening to get the final corrections done. That night marked the first frames I used for the picture of M81.

This one was about 4 hours of data collected that first evening. LRGB, all of it bin2. 

After coming home, I had some evenings on Caldwell 3.

83*300 Lum bin1
46*180 Red bin2
52*180 Green bin2
37*180 Blue bin2
~14 hours of data. Processed in Pixnsight and PS. 

I will not lie. It is scary to have my equipment sitting so far away. If anything happens, I have to arrange a flight to go there. On the other hand, I have gathered more data in the past two weeks than I have in the previous 6 months, which is what it's all about. I'm having fun getting data, I browse for potential targets and I know that this evening will be yet another night of getting good data. More to come...
 

[Mick J]

That all sounds awful Thomas, almost freezing in the Spanish night air, long drive in the Nissan and only just able to squash your kit into the boot.  Wish you all the best with it - looks wonderful, expect you will have more data than you have time to process, thanks for the report.

[pete_l]

55 minutes ago, Mick J said:

almost freezing in the Spanish night air,

That's the thing about clear nights, especially inland. It does get very, very, cold. -5° is pretty routine where I am and -12° is not unknown. The altitude helps with that, too.
The good thing is that those cold, clear, nights have very dry air and give some fantastic seeing.

[Datalord]

1 hour ago, Mick J said:

That all sounds awful Thomas, almost freezing in the Spanish night air, long drive in the Nissan and only just able to squash your kit into the boot.  Wish you all the best with it - looks wonderful, expect you will have more data than you have time to process, thanks for the report.

It's a hard knock life.

Because of all the data, I have a new desktop machine on its way. My laptop is not suited for dealing with drizzled gigantic files. 

[SamAndrew]

Awesome setup  best of luck! How long were you waiting for a spot? As much as I'd love to move to a darker location, the misses loves London so looks like we're here for a while. Remote hosting seemed like the perfect solution, so I decided to put a deposit down at the start of the year; José (which one?!) said if something hasn't come up by July, they will build another bank of observatories  My current setup is light and portable so I plan to fly it out there, see how I get on, and then upgrade to something a bit more meaty in a year or two. 

Was there anything in particular that you were missing when you got there?

[Datalord]

53 minutes ago, SamAndrew said:

Awesome setup  best of luck! How long were you waiting for a spot? As much as I'd love to move to a darker location, the misses loves London so looks like we're here for a while. Remote hosting seemed like the perfect solution, so I decided to put a deposit down at the start of the year; José (which one?!) said if something hasn't come up by July, they will build another bank of observatories  My current setup is light and portable so I plan to fly it out there, see how I get on, and then upgrade to something a bit more meaty in a year or two. 

Was there anything in particular that you were missing when you got there?

I put my deposit down in March and I could have had my spot in November. So yeah, if you want it, put it down as soon as possible.

I missed out on the need for buying my own CloudWatcher. I thought it was set up as part of the roof solution, but they don't want to own the liability for that particular component failing and then having your gear soaked in water. Apart from that, I didn't have any surprises. But then again, I had been operating "remote" in my backyard for a while (running wihtout having to touch a single thing), so I knew the equipment.

One thing you have to be aware of. The mount must have either absolute encoders or a way to home it, so you can start from the exact same point after power off. I don't know if EQ5 has a homing feature? You also need to be proficient with remote access to computers, a controllable UPS, IP camera etc etc. I very strongly encourage you to start practicing right now, because you will learn that you need a hundred little things to be able to just spark everything to life from a computer far from the spot.

[SamAndrew]

4 minutes ago, Datalord said:

I put my deposit down in March and I could have had my spot in November. So yeah, if you want it, put it down as soon as possible.

I missed out on the need for buying my own CloudWatcher. I thought it was set up as part of the roof solution, but they don't want to own the liability for that particular component failing and then having your gear soaked in water. Apart from that, I didn't have any surprises. But then again, I had been operating "remote" in my backyard for a while (running wihtout having to touch a single thing), so I knew the equipment.

One thing you have to be aware of. The mount must have either absolute encoders or a way to home it, so you can start from the exact same point after power off. I don't know if EQ5 has a homing feature? You also need to be proficient with remote access to computers, a controllable UPS, IP camera etc etc. I very strongly encourage you to start practicing right now, because you will learn that you need a hundred little things to be able to just spark everything to life from a computer far from the spot.

Thanks yes I can park my mount up when completed and resume from the parked position so that shouldn't be an issue, although the AZEQ5 does have encoders. I've got 90% of what I think is required sorted out, I currently run my setup from inside using teamviewer. Final piece of the puzzle is a new dedicated PC and test powering it on remotely.

[skybadger]

In the spirit of remote starts, if a serial port or power supply fails, then the mount loses connection and sometimes a reboot is the only way to fix this. Can you do this remotely?

Secondly, if you reboot the scope, mine sometimes comes back on thinking its parked at home when a really it's somewhere quite different . The only fix is relax the clutches and swing it to hone and recalibrate. How do you recover from this sort of event ?

Is the obbo roof under your control too ?

Many thanks

Mike

[Datalord]

52 minutes ago, skybadger said:

In the spirit of remote starts, if a serial port or power supply fails, then the mount loses connection and sometimes a reboot is the only way to fix this. Can you do this remotely?

Secondly, if you reboot the scope, mine sometimes comes back on thinking its parked at home when a really it's somewhere quite different . The only fix is relax the clutches and swing it to hone and recalibrate. How do you recover from this sort of event ?

Is the obbo roof under your control too ?

Many thanks

Mike

The CGX has a very precise homing procedure. I turn off the entire power outlet to all my peripherals remotely every night and maintain a pointing accuracy of about 20 arcsec. It is crucial to have this ability in a remote facility. 

Yes, the roof is controlled as well, with a connection to the rain sensors. If they trigger, the mount parks and the roof closes automatically. Same if Internet or power cuts out. 

[DaveS]

Interesting what you say about needing absolute encoders, as when I was speaking to Rupert at Astrofest '17 he said they had several DDM60 mounts there, which have relative encoders with a home position.

Alas my funds don't permit a remote installation, but if they did I'd be putting in a DDM85 Basic which *does* have absolute encoders, and guides on them with a sky model.

[Datalord]

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Interesting what you say about needing absolute encoders, as when I was speaking to Rupert at Astrofest '17 he said they had several DDM60 mounts there, which have relative encoders with a home position.

Alas my funds don't permit a remote installation, but if they did I'd be putting in a DDM85 Basic which *does* have absolute encoders, and guides on them with a sky model.

I said "The mount must have either absolute encoders or a way to home it". Key word being "or". ?

Once you have a repeatable homing option, you can save the point model and load it every time you start the mount. That's how I operate the CGX.

[DaveS]

OK, I must have missed that from posting on my phone.

[SamAndrew]

20 hours ago, skybadger said:

In the spirit of remote starts, if a serial port or power supply fails, then the mount loses connection and sometimes a reboot is the only way to fix this. Can you do this remotely?

Many thanks

Mike

You use an uninterrupted power supply (aka a battery) that can power the roof and mount long enough to shut everything down in the event of the internet or mains power failing. 

[Datalord]

4 hours ago, SamAndrew said:

You use an uninterrupted power supply (aka a battery) that can power the roof and mount long enough to shut everything down in the event of the internet or mains power failing. 

Yeah, all their roofs are on a separate power line with UPS' capable of shutting everything down.

[skybadger]

I gather the ups keeps the PC running g long enough to issue and validate the closure process ?  

My dome runs off a solar charged battery on the rotating and the fixed sections. It sounds like a good reason to have either a 12v PC or a 2nd watchdog micro to close down devices in case of power failure or loss of comms.

I might start adding that to my devices....

Ta

[Datalord]

4 minutes ago, skybadger said:

I gather the ups keeps the PC running g long enough to issue and validate the closure process ?  

My dome runs off a solar charged battery on the rotating and the fixed sections. It sounds like a good reason to have either a 12v PC or a 2nd watchdog micro to close down devices in case of power failure or loss of comms.

I might start adding that to my devices....

Ta

I have a separate UPS for just my gear. While I was there they had to cut central power for 2 hours. I let my PC keep running and the UPS still had 30% charge left when they put power back.

[Star101]

Sounds like a great situation. So many nights of clear skies! wow!!

So much to image too....I assume you are retired from your day job

Congratulations, Datalord. I look forward to seeing lots of your work posted here.  

[Datalord]

2 minutes ago, Star101 said:

So much to image too....I assume you are retired from your day job

Congratulations, Datalord. I look forward to seeing lots of your work posted here.  

I wish. Still have a fairly demanding manager position with a ton of travel. But with this solution I can run my imaging rigs while I'm on a business trip in the US. ?