I have been making progress on my automation project over the last couple of months and there has been some fun activities recently! Things are moving in the right direction and now getting to the stage where I need to start thinking about physical installation – how will I house the circuit boards and related […]
Automation Phase 3 – Roof The third phase of the automation project is the roof. Not only does it need power, it needs to roll very smoothly to ensure the motors don’t stall when opening and closing the roof. So this element will probably take the longest to complete… 18th November 2016 Some real progress […]
Automation Phase 2 – Power Being able to remotely power up the various components of the observatory is very appealing, and while there is an argument that says until I have the roof sorted there is no point in doing this, I think that getting this element of the project done will be relatively low […]
Automation Phase 1 – Software This initial phase will focus on the various software components needed to: Build a model of the area of sky being imaged Automatically perform a meridian flip Plate solve before and after a meridian flip Acquire images with different filters and exposure times Monitor weather for rain/cloud and alert me […]
Like so many other astronomers, I am now starting on a project to upgrade my observatory to allow full unattended imaging. My definition of ‘unattended’ is that I will be at home but potentially inside the house. Although this project would give the capability of full robotic operation, I’m not sure if that is one […]