For two years I have been imaging remotely, and I have loved every bit of it. But this year started off a bit rocky.
On 15 February 2026, I received unexpected news: the site hosting my telescope would close on 1 April. I had six weeks to find a new location, plan a trip to Spain, and transfer my equipment. I revisited my original selection criteria and contacted all known hosting sites in Spain/Portugal. Most didn't have immediate availability. Two did, and after individual calls with both, I chose Roboscopes — located near Fregenal de la Sierra in Extremadura, on the premises of e-Eye, Europe's largest remote hosting site.
I flew into Alicante on April 6, rented a car large enough to hold all my equipment, and drove to the old site. It was two years ago that I had seen my telescope last, but it was in pristine condition. After carefully labelling cables and taking photos, everything was packed within 2.5 hours. Also the electronics cabinet fit perfectly — no disassembly needed.
The following day I arrived at the new site and met the Roboscopes team — Steve, Peter, and later Manuel. They had everything well prepared. The magnetic drill-press was an invaluable tool to bolt the mount onto the pier, and a small but necessary height adjustment was solved by removing the levelling plate. After connecting all cables and powering up, everything worked immediately. Polar alignment, which Steve and Peter did by eye during the day, was only 7 arcminutes off when I did it in the evening. The goal of <2 arcminutes was achieved in less than 10 minutes.
The final day covered flat panel installation, camera install, custom horizon profiles, software adjustments, etc. That seemed like the end of it, but it turned out that after three years (finally) the scope was out of collimation. Unfortunately I had to wait another day for that due to clouds and rain. But on Saturday night together with Peter — a collimation expert — the collimation could be done. The Skywave score increased from 7.0 to 8.9.
Overall the move went smoother than expected. The telescope is now operational on Pier 6, the system is performing well, and the first images from the new site are included in some recently published images (M19, M100). Some people think that remote imaging is 'not real', or 'easy', because everything goes automatic. But nothing is more besides the truth. A remote setup is challenging, involves constant attention and from time to time hands-on work. And yes, I loved tinkering again with the system...
This is just a short version of the story. If you're interested, feel free to check out the full story here.
CS, Willem Jan.
