Observatory finally finished

I finally finished the observatory a couple of weeks back after my move back to the UK, I have been putting the new EQ8 Pro mount through its paces and I am extremely happy with the performance of the mount, with an RMS of about 0.43 on RA, I am extremely happy

Last night for the first time I used "Plate Solving" in Sequence Generator Pro rather than doing a 3 star alignment and I am ultimately happy with the results

I have so far got around 9 hours of Narrowband completed (Out of 25 hours) on my current target, and I plan on building a 50mpx version of M45 in the not so distant future

Here's some shots of the Observatory and the EQ8
















Since I have a PC in the observatory now, I plan on installing some electronic actuators so that I can also control the roof remotely from home, as the observatory is located on a family members farm with decent broadband speed

Simon

Looks fantastic Simon - lots of room in there for your own star party : cheer:

Looking forward to seeing some great shots from you - I am guessing that it must be a good dark site being a farm.

With SGP plate solving (great isn't it) it will be so easy to go back time and time again to add data. 25 hours - sounds like we are in for a treat when we eventually get a look :woohoo:

Brendan.

Hey Brendan

Well it's not as "Dark" as I would like it to be, North East there's light pollution from a nearby town, west there's light pollution from Gatwick Airport, other than that it is pretty dark!!

I also live in an area where they are switching off the street lights from midnight until 5am as there's becoming a big focus on light pollution in the UK now.

Yes I plan on 25 hours narrowband and 17 hours of LRGB for this project, it's coming along nicely, the plate solving I Love it, so much easier, and you know the object will be back in the same position as the previous night

It also means that as soon as I "Automate the roof" I do not even need to go near the observatory

Simon

Sounds like a great project coming to fruition.

Early next year I hope to have my own Obs set up. (I have made the first step and have installed a concrete pier). Winter nights can be dark enough where I have the scope but most of the year in Spain I have some light pollution to contend with. Working toward doing a lot more with narrow band filters next year......some very interesting results to be had.

Anyway - wishing you the very best with the new set-up and as I said looking forward to seeing some fine images show up on this site from you.

Brendan.

One advantage to living in the South East is more clear nights, and when the astro panel says it is going to be clear, it's going to be clear, not like in Cork where the Low cloud rolls in off the Atlantic!!!

I've tidied up the cables now, the USB Hub is mounted between the two scopes with some 0.5m USB cables, no no more trailing cables either, as you would not believe how that can affect guiding

I had some issues at first with regards to guiding, so I reset PHD2 back to defaults, put in all of the Details such as focal length etc and used PHD2 to perform the drift align which is another awesome tool within PHD2

Ever since then, I have the confidence with this mount to be able to walk away and leave it for a few hours knowing it is guiding well

If it wasn't for the hugely tall trees behind my house would have built this at home!!

Nice one Simon.

Cant wait to see what comes out of this one!!

Every astronomers dream