Fully remote observatory for imaging

[wimvb]

7 hours ago, VilleM said:

but the error only went down to 8" peak to peak even after changing greases to superlube and eliminating all backlash.

If the error is smooth, it will be guided out. Otherwise you probably need to adjust the gear meshing. Have you considered installing a belt drive? This should improve tracking.

Edited October 2, 2020 by wimvb

[VilleM]

The problem is that it isnt smooth. Its anything but, wobbling is visible even on 1s exposures and phd just cant keep up with it.

[wimvb]

On my belt driven AZEQ6 I could remove a short period wobble by increasing the belt tension, ie by improving the meshing between the motor and the belt. On a wheel driven mount, this would be equivalent to improving the meshing between the motor and the first cogwheel. On an EQ6, you should consider to do a belt modification. This improves smoothness a lot.

[gorann]

I love this thread!

Regarding humidity and risk for the equipment, I would suggest you consider to insulate the obsy. At least my worries about humidity have made me insulate my obsies and I keep them at 10°C. Of course it means that you have to open the roof an hour or two before you start imaging.

By the way, in you first post you say Bortle 3 and that SQM is 21.83 - that corresponds to Bortle 1 - cannot be darker! at least according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale)

CS!

[VilleM]

On 04/10/2020 at 17:15, gorann said:

By the way, in you first post you say Bortle 3 and that SQM is 21.83 - that corresponds to Bortle 1 - cannot be darker! at least according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale)

Good point, that information is based on lightpollutionmap.info - I double checked and those parameters (Borttle 3 / SQM 21.83) are still in there on the position of our observatory. Anyways, Ive been more than happy with the darkness of the site.

Insulation wouldnt really work here in the north. It would cool down very quickly during winter without active heating which would give us terrible seeing.

[gorann]

On 12/10/2020 at 15:47, VilleM said:

Good point, that information is based on lightpollutionmap.info - I double checked and those parameters (Borttle 3 / SQM 21.83) are still in there on the position of our observatory. Anyways, Ive been more than happy with the darkness of the site.

Insulation wouldnt really work here in the north. It would cool down very quickly during winter without active heating which would give us terrible seeing.

Hi Ville

My point with insulation is that you can then keep the inside warmer than the outside (with a small radiator inside) when you are not imaging so humidity is reduced and the equipment get a chance to dry up and do not corrode and your lenses and mirrors do not get moldy. 5 - 10 °C above the outside temperature is enough. You turn off the heating when you open up the roof one or two hours before it gets dark and everything will have equilibrated and seeing is not affected. Works even for my 14" SCT which really needs to cool down and have good seeing.

Edited October 13, 2020 by gorann

[VilleM]

After long perioid of cloudy skies I decided to pay the observatory a visit. Mainly because I wanted to do some deep sky observing with our astronomy clubs 16" Meade SCT. I took few friends along and we had great time although transparency was quite bad because there was some hing cloud cover passing by. Most memorable view was NGC6543, cat's eye nebula. I could easily see cyan color and central star. Even some small irregular shapes in the nebulosity, it was a great end to the observing session.
While we were busy observing inside the dome on the right, I shot this timelapse infront of our own observatory where telescopes were hard at work recording photons to the hard drive. Sadly my second battery died after 9 hours of shooting and I didnt have third one so I couldnt get sunrise to the end of the video. Regardless Im quite happy with it.

Also here is final result of what my scope was imaging, soul nebula. This is one of my favourite objects in the night sky.



More technical details can be found in my Astrobin.

[VilleM]

Ive started a blog about this project and everything else astronomy related that I do. Latest update to the blog is my new all sky camera build.
Have a look at: www.evenfall.space

[rodrigol]

Awesome project. And with Bortle 3 and sauna who wouldn't?!? Amazing shots too! Many thanks for sharing. 👍

[Martin VC]

Great Project, thank you for sharing,

I have some questions, 

Do you use a smart UPS? or How do yo realize whent the external energy supply is off?

In case the external supply is off, do you still have internet communication  to shut everything down?  or is there an automated proces for shutting down?

[VilleM]

On 25/01/2021 at 17:33, Martin VC said:

Great Project, thank you for sharing,

I have some questions, 

Do you use a smart UPS? or How do yo realize whent the external energy supply is off?

In case the external supply is off, do you still have internet communication  to shut everything down?  or is there an automated proces for shutting down?

Sorry for late response. We dont have smart UPS, we simply rely on it to keep everything running if there is a small power outtage. If there was a larger one everything would shut down but as soon as the power is back on we would have remote access to the PC's running the telescopes and roof. They are set up to wake as soon as they receive power from the power socket. So far this has worked flawlessly.

I also have some good news about the EQ6, after all it was a very simple fix - It was solved instantly with this small upgrade called Losmandy G11! (all joking aside its still a mystery why the EQ6 behaves so weird)
Really looking forward to install the G11 to the observatory, as I expect a flawless performance from this one. It feels really high quality.

https://www.evenfall.space/post/preparing-for-the-coming-season

[AMcD]

I think you will love the G11, I have had mine now for about 15 years and it has never missed a beat.  I have recently adjusted the worm blocks to achieve better autoguiding with PHD.   

I love following your progress with the observatory.  I am currently engaged in setting my roll-off roof observatory up for remote operation and seeing the way you have done things has been invaluable.🙂

 

[VilleM]

Glad to hear that this thread has been helpful! About the mount - I think so too, previous owner had achieved average PE of just 4 arcseconds in total. I think thats very small error and should be easy to guide out.

[VilleM]

I made a small but quite important upgrade to my 100mm Esprit's focuser - a new gear reduction for the focus motor!
Here is a short blog post about it, really happy of how it turned out.

In the coming weekend Im going to install the new mount, cant wait for the first light with it!

https://www.evenfall.space/post/diy-gear-reduction

Edited August 12, 2021 by VilleM

[VilleM]

We did some big upgrades this weekend, have a look! 😍

https://www.evenfall.space/post/automate-my-weekend-please

[VilleM]

This week I found out that my new mount doesnt like custom park positions, somehow it seems to lose its aligment completely if its not pointing at NCP with counterweights down. Im not at my strongest in debugging softwares so I approached the problem from outside of the box. The custom park position was needed only to point the scope at my flat panel - so I moved the panel to the roll-off roof. 😃 It was easy to get power there though the wheels of the roof because they are solid steel and so is the track theyre rolling on. Now the panel is essentially powered just like trains are! As an added bonus I can use it as a work light.

Ive also started building a new pole for the all sky camera, I want to move my weather station from my telescope to the pole to get more realistic temperature readings. I also will add an SQM meter and a security camera to the pole. The whole thing will be able to tilt 90 degrees to make maintenance easier. Now it just needs paint and the stuff that goes on it!
Also Ive started fiddling with few arduino projects to the observatory lately. A park sensor that prevents roof moving if telescope isnt parked and also sensor bundle that will read voltages and temperatures from multiple things to verify they actually work. For example, all sky camera dew heater or heaters for the tracks, etc. But more on these in the future.

[VilleM]

New mount for the allsky camera is now finished! Its still waiting for some instruments but for now we have surveilance camera, two 4G antennas and ZWO ASI224MC as an allsky camera on it. The small white thing on the right side of the pole will house a weather station in the future. I also ordered a new heater for the dome of the camera from Dew Control - it works really well. 😃

[Ian Thrax]

Superb set up guys and well done for realising it so well, bortle 3!  Swap you my bortle 8 any day!  I am no expert but had a similar fungus invasion in my shed before I converted it to an observatory, and reading up on the internet suggested using a diluted bleach mix and a spray bottle to spray the fungus, seemed to work.  Whilst it has not reappeared I also improved ventillation and fitted a dehumidifier as a back up which kicks in if the humidity rises, so can't guarantee the bleach fixed it but figured it wouldn't do any harm.

[VilleM]

Thank you for advice Ian. We have improved the ventilation and it seems to have stopped the fungus from spreading. I might try to kill the fungus with the bleach solution aswell. Atleast it seems like a good and inexpensive idea to test out.
Lately we have had terrible weather so most of my deep sky work has been waiting for clear nights. The fact that I shot a 12 hour OIII sequence with wrong gain settings didnt help that either! (That ended up in trash can... sigh.)
Anyways, here is one of my recent images, WR134. This is SHORGB image with total integration time of ~19 hours. I hope you like it.

But atleast my all sky camera has been very busy with one bright bolide and two rocket lauches, Soyuz-2 and also Atlas V which was smaller but still a nice catch.

Edited October 10, 2021 by VilleM

[Ian Thrax]

Love it superb images, never tried RGB with SHO before, just starting out really,  but I like the result👍  But please, bortle 3 and you just happen to be able to capture rocket launches, did you happen to get Captain Kirk waving out of the window!  🤣  Superb and a lot of hard work, well done.

[VilleM]

Haha, yes I've seen him and also Enterprise casually passing by of our observatory every sunday.. 🤣
I really just use the stars from RGB data to get more colour to the stars.

[jcschultz01]

Hi, nice setup and I really like the idea of using heaters on the rails.  I was just wondering what to do. 

Could you describe how you do remote control of the roof and the heaters.  I have will hopefully be using a garage door opener  mounted inside the observatory so weather is not a major problem. But how do I connect it to a an internet switch? 

 

Thanks. 

[Padraig]

Here’s one way of controlling roof

Also here’s reasonably priced sliding gate opener, 

https://oxy4us.com/en/content/25-sliding-gate-motors

It’s weather proof and you can mount outside if your caught for space   
 

Here’s a discussion about using a “velleman K8055n”

( has a new part code now I think )

https://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?id=461858

This is what I use myself, ( actually 2 )

loads of interface with Nina 

found it to be very stable, BUT 

I had to solider all components to board !!! 

but worth it  👍

 

 

[Padraig]

Oh yeah 

there’s also the plug and play

https://eu.lunaticoastro.com/product/dragonfly-v-2-0-observatory-controller/

$$$$$

😬

[adyj1]

I followed astrobloke-and-joe's ROR guide (with a few tweaks) with this motor from Amazon (currently £140,got it pre-pandemic for just over £100)

CO-Z Electronic Gate Opener Kit Automatic Sliding Gate Opener for Gate Up to 600KG 200W Gate Opener Motor with 8 Gear Racks and Remote Controls (200W)