I see these actuators have 75kg of force, did you use 2 to balance the lid? And it seems that so much force would damage the wood on which the actuators are attached (which could also indicate why you use 2, to get the amount of force down)...

The lid is heavy and robust, no twisting.
I used two, to ease the operation of opening/closing. The obs is just outside the main bedroom
One single actuator was too noisy, two actually dropped the noise. Yes overkill, but it does not matter.

Here are couple of phots of my observatory, it's not finished yet and I normally had the equipment on my balcony.

Here is the piers, one for photo and one for visual use:






Recently I have started to build a observatory house around it:






My main telescope is a TS130, an APO refractor of 5.2" and with a Riccardi field flattener and reducer, the system gives a focallenght of 682 mm and f/5.3:




The telescope is under all the cables.

I have a USB-focus motor which I remote control:




Lot of work to connect the optical components to each other correctly and to fit the off-axis adapter I have to rebuilt it:




Dew is a big problem:


I have built a heating band from resistors.

This is my control system today, a Windows based astroserver:




Since I added the PC the car battery of 45 Amph don't last more than 5 hours.

And now I'm try to replace it a Linux/Rasberry system:




My camera today is a Canon EOS 6D. One day I maybe can afford a monocrome camera with a filterwheel.

You have the details here for each project:
astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/astronomy-projects.html

/Lars

Sorry, put it in general, it should belong to "Post your INDI Setup", please, can someone move it ?

Thank you who moved it to the correct place!

/Lars

My remote controlled BOX observatory has collected first light

The observatory has been in planning / build stage for a while, but now it's ready for imaging with a click of a button (or two).
There is a complete build thread in my signature, and I made a MEAN webapp for the purpose.

Anyway, heres some pictures of the working observatory. (There is still some fixes to apply before I will call it finished).











And a image of Andromeda. The first image from the observatory.
It's only 6x 10 minute subs, stacked without calibration frames.
Full potential is not met. With some practice in actually using the software, I hope for great things

Outstanding......I just read through your build thread and I say kudos to you on a magnificent job!

Thanks for the kind reply

I just finished first ~30 min remote session!

Managed to focus the camera to superb focus, platesolve and get Andromeda right on target. I also got a couple 60 sec unguided subs with round stars, and started calibrating autoguiding. Then the clouds rolled in.

Amazingly images downloaded much faster remotely (to my desktop pc). I'm wondering if my laptop has some issues. Remotely it took about 10-15 sec to download a image from the dslr, but on site (with laptop) it was about ~1min15sec. I am however in the process of debugging my powerline adapter, and might speed up the process of installing cat6 ethernet

I am using the TP-LINK AV1200 powerline adapters and they have been pretty solid performers. Make sure you're not feeding them through surge protectors or powerstrips or you will likely have issues as these devices tend to pull the signal down and may cause frequent drop outs. As a matter of fact, you don't even want any of those devices on the same circuit if possible. They are affectionately known as signal suckers!

--Jon

At the moment there are no surge protectors or similar. I was forced to use a extension cord, but it's without any electronics.
I have a issue that i cannot power on my dew heaters. If I do network speed drops down to 24Kb/s and gets unstable! I have a thread on it on SGL.

I am however only getting 10Mb/s from my Zyxel. It should be a lot more, so I will have to figure out if there is anything else that can cause this. I have gotten a tip that focusers can have this effect as they are using PWM as the dew heaters are.

In the thread on SGL there was a image of a circuit to isolate the power signal for the 12v power supplies and similar. So they wont feed any signal back to the mains. I might try that before drilling a hole in the house for ethernet

How long is that extension cord? I used one during an experiment and found it to be causing poor signal. Maybe you could try losing the extension cord and try a longer ethernet cable temporarily as an experiment.

It's three meters long. Shortest one I had.

As you say, I could just put the adapter in a free socket on the other side of the room, an use a longer ethernet cable to the switch as a test.


Why didnt I think of that? Should be a easy test before I do something complecated

Meant to ask, what are the clear dimensions that you are using for the opening? I am looking at doing something similar but I am having trouble deciding how much clearance I need. Is there some relationship you are using? For example, how long is the longest point of your setup (i.e. the length from the tip of the counter weight shaft to the top of the scope.) How much clearance did you leave? Thanks and I hope you are making progress with your network.....

--Jon