Observatory clean up

 A little maintenance is required for the observatory, the roof has been sticking a bit lately and I have also wanted to connect the wifi switch module to control the dome movement from inside the house. After all I have had had it a few months now and just never got around to figuring it out.

Observatory Dome Automation.    

The holy grail for this seasoned and now somewhat lazy astronomer is total automation in the imaging process. Long gone are the days of lugging the heavy mount from the shed, desperately avoiding the cat and power cables as you carry the scope across the lawn. On bended knee with one eye open trying to figure out the hour angle of Polaris, balancing, connecting, aligning everything to no avail as the clouds roll in.

151a is now my forth observatory build and the most challenging.

Atop of my observatory I have a 6ft fiberglass dome manufactured

 by American Company Technical Innovations. It has a motor drive system controlled by 2 motors that are set 180 degrees apart around the domes edge. As this power supply is located inside the dome, control is only possible in the observatory. This created issues on a number of levels from pausing an imaging run, going outside and setting off the neighbour’s security lights, moving the dome and returning inside to set things in motion again. With a shutter opening of 60cm the scope has a limited field of view before movement is required when observing or imaging. Doing this every half hour is a little frustrating but what else could I do..

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I follow quite a few Youtube channels following astronomers as they battle their own journey of learning and improving in their hobby. One in particular is “Astrobloke” an astronomer who’s interest is creating a fully automated imaging set up with his roll on / off roof observatory. Over a few months he eluded to a the possibility of controlling his roof by the means of a app using a simple wireless relay. A simple and cheap little box purchased from Amazon for currently £26.

MHCOZY Ewelink WiFi Relay Switch,Self-Locking/Momentary Timer WiFi Switch Module,Compatible with Alexa Google Assistant (4CH WiFi RF 220V) : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

It. seemed a little to easy to be true and sure enough he got it to work. So I thought I would have a go too.

A few months passed and convinced myself I could not make this work as the internal wiring of the power supply looked just a mass of wires and struggled with getting my head around what was what at what wire went where. So I stripped it all back and rewired sending a supply to the module and outputs to each motor.  

 

I downloaded an App EweLink and paired via the wifi and pushed the button…It works. After adjusting a few settings the dome moves by itself for 3 seconds whenever it’s needed to move. The next step is to automate this with a programme like Nina or SGP. Astrobloke now says he has developed with another youtuber some open source software that does indeed work via Nina so it is now truly intergrated into his imaging process. This is something I will certainly like to look at but for now I am happy and content with pushing a button every 30 minutes,

The next and final part of the project will be dome shutter control open and close but for now no more getting up, going outside, no more accidental triggering of the neighbours lights, Lazy or what..