Kumeu Observatory

Guy Thornley 28 yo Systems software engineer Experienced visual observer
David Moorhouse 28 yo Electronics Technician public television Telescope builder Astrophotography

TVNZ outside

Sydney CR

Binoscope no cover

Binoscope rear

Binoscope construction

Dave at play

Dave Climbing

Rock on

Guy Climbing

Map wide red

Map med

High Ground 110 Meters Map by fog Not affected contour
Town Plan doesnt allow Kumeu farmland looking east 10 acre blocks to be broken up
Kumeu west looking farmland

Kumeu aerial

Kumeu outside

Nap Time

Tea Time
Kumeu Observatory Timeline
1980 Main structure was built by property owner Steve Calveley with old steel dome, grass roof 12 Maksutov Cassegrain 1988 Roll off roof Mark Boss, Gordon Herdman The secret weapon was developed Site was underutilised for years 2000 new wooden dome with Meade 10 LXDavid Moorhouse, Guy Thornley, Paul Kemp looking for new visual observing site only doing visual work
2004 Decided to get the LX200 going and failed, due to very bad periodic error (>1.5 arc-min!) 2005 Celestron C14 fork mount moved to Kumeu fitted with 10 Meade OTA Started doing work for CBA 2006 Wasp observatory was built for astrophotography 2007 Nustrini C14 OTA moved to Kumeu Had first go at microlensing run hampered by cloud 2008 Automated dome First serious microlensing season several good runs

Current Equipment

Celestron orange tube C14
fork mount non-goto ~ 28 yo On long term loan from the Nustrini family Modified for autoguiding Byers gears

ArgoNavis

Digital setting circles Provided by AAS

Rigel Quickfinder

Used for one star alignment

Nustrini paramount

Lesve Dome
ASCOM compliant dome driver based about cheap hardware Position sensor wheel and home sensor
http://www.dppobservatory.net/DomeAutomation/DomeDriver.htm

Boltwood cloud sensor

Cloud Sensor
SBIG ST7 CFW8 with V filter Celestron x0.63 focal reducer JMI motor focus
Semi manual, digital readout Not computer controllable

Computer

Various hubs, power supplies, dew heaters, cables etc All supplied by Dave

Current Software

MaximDL V5 Pro Suite GSC and UCAC2 catalog for plate solving ASCOM L5 Lesve Dome driver PemPro CCD Inspector ACP Automation trialled in Wasp The Sky Six

Work flow processes

25 to 40 minutes typically to startup Every 20 min re-focus for first 2 hours Every hour after that (5 min each time) Using CCD inspector to watch focus trends
Images are put onto ext hard drive Usually processing is done at home next day after sleeping Upload from home to FTP server
Startup Starting PC, MaximDL, dome driver, mount, Argonavis Manually aiming scope & dome at bright star Centring star on focus window in MaximDL Choosing and syncing star in Argonavis If this is a new target setting up RA Dec and name in Argo
Cont Doing a manual focus run Push telescope to target, zeroing numbers on Argonavis Taking a 30 sec pointing exposure Plate solving using MaximDL Changing cursor to Astrometric mode Seeing where the target actually is on the plate
cont Using short 5 sec exposures in focus mode Centre the target using hand pad Double check RA Dec and compare to image on webpage Setup autoguiding Setup MaximDL sequence to take 5 min exposures Start sequence

Image Calibration

Dusk flats taken when ever possible Dusk flats are either 1 or 2 sec Dusk flat darks of 1 & 2 sec taken Manual push of telescope between exposures during download time Darks of 5 min duration usually taken before or after time series run
MaximDL is used for Calibration of images Images are calibrated using Darks and Flats with no dark scaling needed MaximDL has powerful batch processing abilities
Images are autoguided so batch processing of image cropping is possible Animation of images for visual quality check Manually finding the XY star position, then setting up a crop to give me 500x500 finished images Entire dir is zipped using winzip

Acquisition team goals

Max time coverage of events Overlapping between teams Technically perfect images
Focus Tracking Calibration
Timely uploading Quick response Collaboration with other teams Time management with day job

Current Obstacles

Medium quality mount needs guiding Clouds cause autoguiding to fail Focus changes rapidly during evening Focusing late night is error prone Celestron focal reducer not optimised
Non Goto mount causes issues
needs initial alignment Cant auto re-centre using plate solving Start-up sequence is complicated Therefore it cant be done by neighbours
Good time management is not possible as we cant begin to leverage automation products A single dome PC means images are taken home to process, rather than risk losing image capture time
Quick response is difficult via irregularly checked E-Mail Both David and Guy work late 10pm on a regular basis We cant remotely run observatory even with someone else onsite (Steve or Alan) If its partly cloudy we often wont go due to next day work commitments

Improving our output

Top results need
Solid equipment Solid repeatable processes Allowing technology to improve time management

Autofocus

Computer controlled temp compensating focuser

Mount

Replace or upgrade to goto

Focal reducer

Argos reducer tube to allow correct spacing

Second PC

for image processing

Automation

ACP allows a truly autonomous amateur observatory to be a reality and time wasting tasks to be done automatically
Using 10 Meade in Wasp Using Skype for communication No Sleep is a MAJOR for everyone this can be improved with better systems and equipment

What is ACP

Complete software solution for observatory automation Automates
Object acquisition Telescope re-centring Focusing Autoguiding Dome control Weather safety Entire image taking process Dusk or Dawn Flats
Either un-attended or remote operation Web based interface Enabler of better time management

Us and uFun

It has been a pleasure to work with this group Andy and Subos regular prompt feedback is a major incentive to maintain enthusiasm We are 110% committed to this project