My Backyard Observatory (Tim Hutchison)

Contains: Gear

My Backyard Observatory

I am extremely excited about my new backyard observatory! So much so that I couldn't wait until the landscaping around it was done before I posted these pictures. Oh well, you all don't care about the bushes, you care about the function, right?!?

So here it is. I kept the size to 8x10 in order to avoid building permits. In my area that's a HUGE hassle. The roll off roof is controlled by a Skyroof system from Interactive Astronomy. I used an Aleko gate motor to drive the roof (shown in the revisions). Also, I'm using a Skyalert from Interactive Astronomy to track the weather. The 10Micron GM1000HPS and Takahashi TAK-130NFB are mounted with the QHY600M camera and filter wheel. Focuser is an Optec FocusLynx. I use Chroma filters in the filter wheel.

I have been using the Voyager software suite from Starkeeper to drive my rig and it's even better when automating the observatory. At the start of the night it turns on all of the gear (mount, camera, focuser, etc.) and waits for a safe condition to open the roof and start shooting. Weather events cause the software to park/unpark the scope and open/close the roof. At the end of the night it parks the scope, closes the roof, turns everything off, and restarts the whole entire process, waiting for darkness when it will kick it all off again. I just feed it targets and frames to shoot and wake up in the morning to see what I got.

Happy to answer any questions and always happy to hear your comments.

Final
Original
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C
D
E

D

Description: Aleko gate motor

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: Skyalert

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Cloudy Nights

Gear

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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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My Backyard Observatory

My Backyard Observatory

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