Tour of the astrophotography observatory

Here is a quick tour of every instrument at SRO! SRO is a commercial remote observatory in the Eastern Sierra Mountains of California outside of Fresno. It sits at about 4,500ft elevation and it's main advantage is consistently good seeing and dark skies. SRO also has really great on-site support, power, and wifi. It is where I do most of my deep sky astrophotography. It is home to many very large telescopes as you can see.
If you want to know more about the observatory check out their website: www.sierra-rem...
If you're interested in getting access to the data from the scope you can inquire about the SRO Virtual Astronomer Program here: www.sierra-rem...

[@gergq5888]

This is awesome! SRO is my fathers company. He originally started this as a hobby and turned into this amazing business. Thank you for this.

[@mevansmrichard]

Thats great. Who is your father?

[@joostvisser6508]

This is incredibly impressive! I didn't know something like this existed, but the tour was awesome!

[@-WhizzBang-]

You didn't know telescopes and cameras existed??? What rock have you been living under?

[@joostvisser6508]

@@-WhizzBang- I didn't know remote observatories like this existed

[@RaysAstrophotography]

Wow! I felt we have a great company of community like minded! Thanks for the tour Brey

[@outdegree]

My head is spinning from all the sick setups here… I can’t look again at my AVX :)

[@peterlaubscher3989]

So interesting - thank you for this fascinating tour - amazing equipment.

[@nigeldawson5960]

Dude, thanks for the tour! What a facility!

[@jesuspineiro1622]

The huge old telescope that gave you a laugh is a Byers Co classic, Byers has made the most precision drives ever built. You should pay more attention to that classic. Obviously it needs updating, but a Byers Research grade drive with +/- 3" PE without guidance, you won't get it on any other worm drive system.

[@astrofalls]

I thought it might've been a Byers! Good to know

[@stephane153]

This is VERY impressive !!! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[@simonpepper5053]

Astroporn! That is some serious gear

[@woody5109]

Very cool, had no idea these places existed. You clearly know your stuff, thanks again

[@OptimusGrind3333]

Very cool man. Thanks for the walk through. I actually called them a couple months ago hoping to come up and shoot for a weekend, didn't realize it was all remote. Love your work too. Woooo

[@astrofalls]

Would be cool if they had a place for astronomers to stay and camp!

[@shubhamcweb]

great tour! I'm currently 19 and have an 8" f4 newtonian that I got as a gift from someone, and you're really an inspiration for me! I hope one day I'm able to have my own observatory telescope setup(s). Do you mind me asking what you do for a living??

[@--Adrian--]

This clip helped me a lot. I was just recently talking to the owner of the TEC200 about how the 10M manages the refractor. I plan to use it with a CFF200 and this clip made my day ... seeing the combo live, up close :)

[@timwilde4200]

I am just so blown away by all of that - clearly there's some serious money in play! I'm looking to buy a 9.25 Edge for my first serious telescope, and it looks like a toy compared to many of those! :)

[@heraklit8.170]

Planewave has obviously succeeded RC-Optical Systems in this market segment. Thumbs up!

[@StereoSpace]

Wow! I'd never even heard of it before now.

[@LM-ek2hb]

I see a lot of PrimaLuceLab Eagles throughout those buildings. I would have thought that many scopes would just have any typical NUC, but I guess the mounting capability of the Eagle case is pretty popular! Several scopes have flat panel setups where they can slew to do their flats. Others don't - I wonder if either they don't do flats, don't change anything and don't need to, or if thay are just in a location in the building where that's not an option? Anyway, really interesting tour! Thank you so much for investing the time to do it.

[@astrofalls]

Yeah the eagles are a bit more turnkey especially for power distribution so they tend to be more popular. Some people choose to just do sky flats on their scopes I think, the flat panel is just an extra convenience

[@jc4evur661]

Incredible equipment. It makes me wonder whether they'll come a point where amateurs will tire of astrophotography because everything worthy of being photographed will have already had its picture perfectly taken a hundred times.

[@UlexMusic]

Great tour 👍 about the setup with many many camera lenses, looks sort of like a precursor to the HAT-PI project, as shown in the Science section of the Fornax Mounts website, all visible sky observation in 30s is the goal, not sure if directly related though!

[@fatitankeris6327]

Telescope paradise.

[@AndyofAstro]

This was fascinating. What an incredible place. Do you know what science is being done there. How do clients access the telescopes? Do you provide network and internet and then they remote into the equipment. How is the network managed, does each setup have its own VLAN and IP range which they access, Team View? Thanks for presenting this, what is your role at the observatory?

[@astrofalls]

Most people use a remote client like teamviewer, anydesk, chrome remote, splash top. Network and internet is provided, there is fiber internet as well as starlink on sight. Each setup gets its own IP for remote power switching. My role is the software troubleshoot guy when people have problems! I also come to do some maintenance on scopes sometimes

[@arringar]

Great walkthrough. Perhaps at some point I will do something similar for Deep Sky West where my system is. It's always really fascinating walking around to see the unique systems others have setup.

[@starsips]

I really enjoyed this tour! Thank you!

[@alisastrophotography]

Very cool! So many toys :) feels like a kid at the candy store :D

[@bruce150]

Amazing stuff. Thanks for the tour!

[@christophergemeinhardt3404]

Man, that is impressive! We’re you able to identify the camera that was being used with the rasa 8 and the type of filter wheel? Love those kind of shenanigans

[@astrofalls]

No havent been able to find out. At most it would be a 2600mm but more likely its a 1600

[@easy56wedge]

Wow! Great stuff. I certainly hope you’ve made preventative arrangements for forest fires.

[@simonwalsh6804]

BTW - the ASA mount is a DDM100, I think. It's dark so hard to see. I have one of these in Spain. Awesome DD mount. No guiding is needed. This review of all the gear is one of the best Astro videos I've seen yet. Really really good.

[@--Adrian--]

Hello Simon. Since you use both ASA and 10M, which one is more suited for reasonable unguided work. By reasonable I mean 10-20 min subs with a refractor, 1300 mm FL , 0.9"/pixel scale. I plan to upgrade from some time now and I just don't have enough input to make a decision :)). I am leaning toward 2000 hps

[@samchasingstarlight]

Great tour and narration. Couple of questions. 1. What’s the year round median seeing? I see on website 1 arc sec is listed for summer. Is that median, average or best? 2. Does SRO offer insurance for theft, damage caused by natural events, ect?

[@astrofalls]

For the spring and summer it is very good, usually 1.1-1.5. On good nights 0.8-0.9. On average throughout the year I'd say about 1.6. I don't check the seeing monitor too often but just give it a peek every couple nights and you'll get a feel for it. As for insurance, the equipment is insured and there is security monitoring on site.

[@TheJoshuaCarter]

That FSQ-106 rig with all Primaluce gear is wild! I wish I knew who it belonged to so I could ask them about which adapters they are using to get proper backfocus. I wonder if they are using a reducer? Crazy cool looking rig.

[@astrofalls]

It is always a pain finding the right adapters for the takahashi rigs lol

[@DavesAstrophotography]

That site is seriously impressive! Some really bizarre setups as you pointed out. Hate to think how much cash is tied up in equipment across that whole site.....

[@astrofalls]

Hahaha too much. Good thing they have security and insurance 😂

[@anata5127]

@@astrofalls These are not Ferraris. They don’t need security. Nobody will take these gizmos; even if you pay people.

[@SirDerpsalot1]

@@anata5127 idk ana, there are setups worth 5 digits or even 4. Though i'm sure people wouldn't have a clue what they're looking at unless they have the knowledge

[@anata5127]

@@SirDerpsalot1 SFUp. I know more than you will ever do. Read carefully my email; they are not Ferraris and a majority of population doesn’t care. You need security for valuable things in demand, cost doesn’t matter. Even KIA is more valuable In people eyes than 5 digit astro systems. Here is for you example, what people will prefer to have a Ferrari or James Webb telescope? Now did you get it? D*** a**!

[@SirDerpsalot1]

@@anata5127 ok then

[@TheBignick243]

I wish I worked here! This place is amazing!

[@AstroFalconVegas]

Awesome tour, thank you! I have some questions if you don't mind. Are those buildings air conditioned during the daytime? Or just big exhaust fans? If no a/c, what are the average highest temps during the summer months? Does the heat effect the instrument's at all, or nominal? Thanks

[@astrofalls]

They do have some air conditioning, not enough where it is comfortable to stand in but it is not cooling the gear in the summer. Right now there is a heatwave so it’s pretty hot, maybe 101°. Usually it’s not this hot in the summer. All the equipment is fine even if it’s hot, it will never exceed the max storage temperature spec for any gear

[@angellestat2730]

Cool. Can I take my Seestar s50 to that place? Is there still a space left? It will not take much :)

[@NeilCorke]

Very interesting!

[@simonwalsh6804]

Hi Bray. You keep mentioning the scopes with FF sensors and your own FSQ106. I have this scope with a QHY600 and have yet to get perfect stars corner to corner. I have basically given up on this. You say you have achieved this with the reducer; this would be my dream, but it's not possible with my FSQ106 sample. The only thing I have found reliably covers the IMX455 sensor is the TOA130 with the matched flattener and my LZOS152. Wide field, fast, "perfect stars" imaging with that sensor has eluded me. Any comments?

[@justlanchen]

Nice telescope

[@isoufo]

Holy crap! To bad it's not open to the public >_< Great place in Minnesota that will let you use their observatory for free after proper training. Not as nice as that place obviously, but still excited for my training in about a month.

[@drunk_astronomy]

rest in peace, Sophia. 😢

[@kmh032008]

Where’s the AVX with the Apertura 60ED? 😁

[@user-hj1il9vh6y]

I really laughed at your comment 😂

[@Z-add]

Planewave has cornered the high end telescope market. And the cdk design has proven itself

[@komivalentine3067]

Wow, those setups are amazing! Now I feel really small with my F/11 1122mm ED refractor

[@matforsbon]

21:25 This is an ordinary Celestron C14 EDGE HD Telescope and not a RASA with a Hyperstar connected at the front end correcting plate, if you look closely at the back there is a visual back there for Eyepieces and Cameras which RASA don't have.

[@ghrvjdev]

I’m a beginner astrophotographer so correct me if I’m wrong. My guess for the reason behind the weird setup at 21:55 with all up to 10 camera lenses is for the purpose of creating a mosaic, I mean I heard with big telescopes and high focal length it would be difficult to do wide-field astrophotography and frame your target in a single shot… I don’t know it’s just my guess… I’m just a beginner so… yeah

[@rosaluks644]

A great informative video! I have MLI16200 available for sale at half the price. So if anyone is looking t replace theirs, please reply to this comment. ML16200 are not produced anymore.

[@OGParzoval]

I just want to get a solid skyshed, buy a spot around 10k feet here in the rockies in BFE, and get it setup with a solar, battery, starlink system and make it fully automated and remote. Just gotta buy a mountain top somewhere.

[@kimex5164]

sick!!!!!

[@wesquist198]

21:25 is not a RASA its a 14" Edge hd running hyperstar. The focuser looks to be a feather touch with auto focuser not hooked up.

[@blueastrophotography6131]

Awesome tour Bray thanks for sharing! btw how much money do you think is in total in SRO I saw very big and expensive stuff.

[@astrofalls]

Hard to say exactly how much... theres about 40 systems there some with multiple scopes. safe to say alot!

[@hael8680]

5:19 Any room left for my HEQ5 with ZWO 1600MM? 🤔😁

[@roninrider1930]

i want to record all 4 of my telescopes all 4 cameras what unit do you use for mixing video?

[@tombock336]

So wild.

[@doramason]

I guess no GSO garbage is allowed on the premises. Nice ;)

[@davidmartinez9130]

bro and how much is one of those big telescopes worth? do they sell them to the public? where they sell them ?

[@peterbresler1382]

Tolga can get Planewave for you.

[@easy56wedge]

So do the roofs open or do the telescopes slide out from the walls?

[@astrofalls]

The roofs will roll off an hour before sunset!

[@alexanderreinders4009]

hi Bray! Is this your main job supporting SRO or is this more orgnized like a kind of club?

[@astrofalls]

The support I provide for people at SRO is a portion of my income, I also do most of my astrophotography from here!

[@rxaliansari]

What is all telescope price

[@benjamincasatimcintosh2918]

how the hell can someone get to work at a place like this

[@SonoranAstro]

these mounts alone cost more than my house LMAO

[@montanausa329]

Starting at $800 a month for that much they should be giving it 3 meals a day and weekly spa treatments 😊😊

[@yannisjaeh8690]

If heaven exists i expect it to look like this xd

[@rboxem87]

The 135’s all seem to point to slightly different places. Extreme mosaic data gathering?

[@astrofalls]

Perhaps, they are near the ecliptic so I think they might be for studying GEO satellites

[@anata5127]

Renting a place is probably priced at >2K a month.

[@kessiaaipopo5006]

😋 ｐｒｏｍｏｓｍ

[@-WhizzBang-]

What Millions of dollars worth of Astro-photography Equipment looks like!

[@carlostejeda6191]

Too much money covered with dust...cool toys.

[@Mantas73]

No sound?

[@Rafastro]

Sick!