The Telescope I'm Sending to the Southern Hemisphere!

In this video I go over my observatory system for the southern hemisphere! I will be hoping to do some all sky imaging, as well as some regular astrophotography. This system uses a takahashi fsq85 and rokinon 135, with dual ZWO 6200 cameras. Should do wonders!
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[@nikaxstrophotography]

you neded to lock the autofocus it was making me a little giddy

[@junluo4381]

Quiet some autofocus hunting in some of the videos. I’m sure it’ll be addressed soon.

[@astrofalls]

Girlfriends camera struggles a lot. All my DSLRs are astro modified and have terrible daylight color balance. Will lock it down in manual mode for the next one!

[@RaffaelMarx]

Hi Bray I've been thinking about this then I watched you video and started to think about the viability after digesting all this. You're absolutely right. When living in an apartment 200km away from the closest sub bortle 4 sky a decision needs to be made. You helped me to racionalize the whole situation and I shall make some changes (life changing btw). Great video! Any astrophotographer thant is planning to get more serious about the hobby should think about this sooner o later. Cheers from Brazil

[@Rob_1472]

Dang! You’re gonna be capturing 5-6 days a week under very clear skies. Congrats and look forward to seeing your images

[@astrofalls]

Yes its gonna be awesome! The other great part is that from the timezone shift I get to image 24/7!

[@peterlaubscher3989]

Welcome to Souther Africa - the skies in Namibia are stunning, breathtakingly beautiful - and yes, we've got the best stuff in the night sky in the south... 😊

[@astrofalls]

I hope to witness them in person one day! I was drawn to them because the winter season there is so so so clear

[@peterlaubscher3989]

@@astrofalls Yip, our Winter skies are amazing. South Africa's semi-desert area, the Karoo, is home to many large telescopes at Sutherland. In my view, the Nambian skies are clearer than the Karoo.

[@mupangamwanakatwe1300]

Good afternoon and a belated Happy New Year. As I live in Zambia, in the southern hemisphere and neighboring Namibia, I am very excited by your soon-to-be southern hemisphere remote telescope to be located in Namibia. Do you have a list of the targets you will be imaging as top priorities? Also, will you be sharing some of you imaging sessions and processing for this set up? Am sure that you’ll have a lot of clear and very dark skies in Namibia! Wishing you the best in 2023 …

[@nihar1987]

Could have turned off the autofocus. Your content is great but the camera is really struggling to focus every few seconds.

[@NeilCorke]

That looks likes an excellent setup. With the Eagle, will you be connecting this to the router with a Cat 5 cable at the observatory? Don’t forgot to change the BIOS so it reboots to power on if there is a power cut. Also it’s easy to swap out the SSD for a larger one. Tom at Prima Luce USA showed me how to do this. We have a couple of these at a remote observatory in Spain and they have been 100% reliable.

[@astrofalls]

Yeah its going to get ethernet wifi, and trust me I got the power reboot set correctly. I've been opting to run samsung T7 SSDs at the observatories I run just because they are so simple. What obs in spain are you at? was looking at some today

[@NeilCorke]

@@astrofalls Pixel Skies in Granada. Get a lot of clear nights and the couple that run the place are very helpful.

[@jacquesdeacon5240]

Hi Bray, very nice setup. If I may ask, to which site in Namibia are you sending your rig? The Essato focuser looks really nice… I’m want to replace my focuser on my TAK FSQ106, but currently undecided between going the Essato route or Nitecrawler route. Are you going to add a tilt adjuster on your rig, these small pixel, full-frame sensors are brutal… What are you going to do for remote calibration (flats and dark) on this rig? I see PrimaLuceLab has brought out some really nice scope cover/flat devices. Thanks for the cool videos, keep them coming!

[@astrofalls]

It’s going to Hakos! If you are using a reduced, the nitecrawler is very nice to use with the sidewinder adapter. However you can use the Gerard Neumann tilt adapter with the esatto and arco to achieve the same result. I have an alnitak flip flat for the calibration part, but the lens system will be more difficult to get right

[@jacquesdeacon5240]

Thanks, Hakos is amazing! Cool points on the focusers, Im replacing my stock FSQ106 focuser because I’m dealing with some tilt in my system with the full-frame QHY600. The Nightcrawler (I know you have one on your FSQ106) looks like a beast. Expensive, but the similar Essato + Arco combo is very close to it money-wise in any case. Guess its a buy once, cry once purchase decision again, like we always tell ourselves when buying astro-gear. 😅 Looking forward to see the first results when your rig in running in the south! Regards, Jacques

[@chrisbeere2117]

@@astrofalls World class skies in the Gamsberg. Im heading to Rooisand in May.

[@Hellbenderarms]

Do you have to travel to the remote site to set up your telescope, or will someone there do it for you? Thanks.

[@astrofalls]

Someone there will do it for me! though one day I hope to visit

[@junluo4381]

Eagle 3/4 Wi-Fi issue is the most frustrating one. I had done the external monitor and keyboard thing on my drive way. It was not fun. Other than that it is great.

[@astrofalls]

Managed to get it working really well last night for some reason… these computers are definitely better remote

[@jessemeyer105]

If you don’t mind me asking, about how much is it to run the system remotely?

[@astrofalls]

About $320/month

[@hael8680]

If you are "sending" the equipment down, who installs it for you and does the maintenance?

[@jlecomte0719]

Super cheap … $500 🤯 (talking about the Rokinon lens) 😂 Good deal, I enjoy your videos.

[@NeilCorke]

Definitely cheap compared to the Sigma 135mm which we have and just as good from what I’ve heard.

[@jlecomte0719]

@@NeilCorke Oh, for sure! For the quality, it’s an amazing price, no question about it. I was just teasing Bray for saying something that would otherwise sound a little “cringy” in another context 😉

[@astrofalls]

Hehehe it’s all relative! $500 in this world is budget 😂