New neighbours moving in - tips requested! - Forums

Topic starter

Jun 25, 2024

Hi everyone,

A friend and I are thinking of going halves and moving a rig over to a pier in PixelSkiesAstro (less thinking of, more already decided to).

We've had a fantastic conversation and video call with Dave and Michelle who have answered all our questions so far. We're 99% of the way there, just have to figure out the fine details with regards to kit and equipment. We've seen the various reviews available online, but we'd like some more (and potentially more up to date) experience from existing customers.

Any tips for kit/equipment?
Anything to plan for when installing the rig?
Anything you wish you would have done when moving in?
How much data are you able to gather?

Really, just happy for anyone to share anything with us!

Feel free to reply below or send me a message privately if more appropriate. Thanks!

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Vitali

Jun 25, 2024

Hi Jamie,

my advice would be to make sure that the rig is working flawlessly at your backyard before moving it to a remote site

My scope has been at PixelSkies for about 3 years and I've gathered some statistics. From August 2021 to March 2024 the scope took images (at least 1 light frame) on 479 nights out of 953. I do not image for about 1 week in a months during full Moon, so this number does not include clear nights with Moon.

Also here is a chart which shows number of light frames (180 seconds each) for every night:

Good luck!
Vitali

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Tom Engwall

Jun 25, 2024

I’ve had great success at Pixelskies and many times Dave has been a lifesaver for me because l live 4000 miles away in the southeast US. I think the the most important equipment you can have is your mount. Get the best you can afford. You will have many great nights of imagining there with very little to no gradients.

Good luck

Tom

alistairmac

Jun 25, 2024

Hi Jamie

You will enjoy the skies and additional levels you can reach with both targets and amounts of data. I have done a few UK/Spain comparisons and the differences really are amazing. (I'm assuming you are uk based 😁).

Would definitely echo the sentiments above, especially about knowing your software and hardware inside out, but full credit to Dave who has always been very helpful with problems and finding solutions.

Have a think about data retrieval. I automatically send everything to Google Drive and then download when it suits me however I have no doubts there are more sophisticated methods, but I like simple.

And above all, have some fun 😁

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Jamie Macdougall

Topic starter

Jun 26, 2024

Vitali:
Hi Jamie,

my advice would be to make sure that the rig is working flawlessly at your backyard before moving it to a remote site

My scope has been at PixelSkies for about 3 years and I've gathered some statistics. From August 2021 to March 2024 the scope took images (at least 1 light frame) on 479 nights out of 953. I do not image for about 1 week in a months during full Moon, so this number does not include clear nights with Moon.

Also here is a chart which shows number of light frames (180 seconds each) for every night:

Good luck!
Vitali

Hi Vitali, thank you for the in-depth data that's very useful! It looks even better than we were expecting. We plan on running the rig complete for a couple of months completely to really iron out the creases before we drive it down there.

Tom Engwall:
I’ve had great success at Pixelskies and many times Dave has been a lifesaver for me because l live 4000 miles away in the southeast US. I think the the most important equipment you can have is your mount. Get the best you can afford. You will have many great nights of imagining there with very little to no gradients.

Good luck

Tom

Thanks Tom, we are sending an EQ8 with a dual rig OTA mounted - possibly even giving it a work-over at DarkFrameOptics first to ensure longevity. That should be plenty! How often do you have to rely on Dave to sort something out?

Hi Jamie

You will enjoy the skies and additional levels you can reach with both targets and amounts of data. I have done a few UK/Spain comparisons and the differences really are amazing. (I'm assuming you are uk based 😁).

Would definitely echo the sentiments above, especially about knowing your software and hardware inside out, but full credit to Dave who has always been very helpful with problems and finding solutions.

Have a think about data retrieval. I automatically send everything to Google Drive and then download when it suits me however I have no doubts there are more sophisticated methods, but I like simple.

And above all, have some fun 😁

Hi Alistair, thank you for the good points! We are UK based, yes. We've been imaging for a number of years between us but the UK weather is what's primarily driving us to move to PixelSkiesAstro. We're planning on having a NAS in line with some cloud-based backup like you are doing. How do you find the data speeds? Dave mentioned they'd prefer if we don't download any data in the first half of the night to allow the bandwidth for other users at the site - do you have any issues? Has all your data from the night been uploaded to your Google Drive by the time you wake up in the morning? We're certainly having fun already and really looking forward to coming down to install the equipment (maybe not looking forward to the drive, though!).

Tom Engwall

Jun 26, 2024

I was pretty much a novice when I started out and Dave was and continues to be a great help. I try to work things out myself but if I get stuck, he’s available to consult with or check on your equipment.

alistairmac

Jun 26, 2024

Data speeds are generally good to very good. I am setup so that the backups are staged through the night and not all in one go so hopefully I am no more of a burden than anyone else. Also I am still using a ccd so I'm not uploading silly numbers of large images 😉. I have thought about sending a larger format camera out but have had bad experiences with Spanish customs though that was nothing to do with Pixelskies.

Occasionally I do get a slow connection but that is generally when I haven't had time to setup through the day and am joining early evening. However it is just as likely that it's my own home connection that is slow as I live in the sticks and isn't that reliable.

I like a few others use Voyager to control the imaging and therefore the whole imaging session is scripted. My own setup is set to message me at significant events (and errors!) so I generally don't have to intervene though I usually have a quick look in to double check fov - I am known to cock that up a few times! 😁. There is also a very useful messaging service informing everyone when the roof opens and closes.

The upshot of trying to make everything automated is that apart from changing targets, there is often very little to do when online; and Dave has fixed everything I have broken/cocked up. To cover the actual doing of astro imaging, I get more than enough of a fix tinkering with my home system, it's just that Spain gets massively more use!

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