Recent History
Just happened @ CROW
Both Systems for Filipe Alves and João Gregório are about to become operational (still some minor tuning issus to be taken care of). Stay tuned...
Filipe Alves and Joao Gregório are about to join CROW's team to join Paulo Barros and myself.
A brief description will be included here soon with some work done by all three of them so people can have an idea of how a robotic observatory can be used by multiple users.
11.08.2008
New facelift to CROW was made through implementation of web templates found on Just Web Templates.
10.08.2008
The Pickering Triangle is done!
Check out all three emission line filters (S - H - O) and the emission line synthetic RGB.
Paramount ME arrived @CROW. The long waited mount has finally arrived with a few glitches. The 3 DIP switches had one out of place (it was where it should but it didn't work that way) and after some calls to Software Bisque I finally managed to get the mount to work.
A MetRec System is being impelmented to capture meteors using Sirko Molau's free program. A Mintron 12V6EX camera does all the work with a Computar 4.5mm f/1.4 lens.
AAG Cloud Watcher
The AAG Cloudwatcher by Antonio Peres Gomes (AAG) is one of those products you've got to have. Made in the spirit of amateur astronomy (AAG sells it at cost...actually losing money with it because of all freeware development). Make no mistake, this is an "as professional as you can get" product. It can be connected with an emulation of the outrageously expensive Boltwood Cloudwatcher to just about any software which supports a weather station.
Old History
Bunker@CROW
This is a project which is hosted at CROW and it's based on simplicity and complexity to it's most. Paulo Barros developed a system based on a CG-5 to work robotically from anywhere in the World.
Construction Started
- Breaking ground (and my back also) for CROW. This is the way to get there. This is the first picture I took @CROW with my cell phone at dusk.
The
basic shape of CROW started developing
after making a N S E W orientation of the building. Had to do this
with a piece of rope, a tree and Polaris to align the building as
good as possible.
One major trench was dug up to pass power lines and communication circuits. I showed up there with my brothers and three shovels but discovered in no time that what was dug was the negative of the great wall of China so it was a job for a machine and not 3 guys.
This is what the front "door" of CROW looked like when bricks were piled and cemented to each other. It started to take shape...Whohoo. Walls starting to grow...
In
no time the entire infrastructure
appeared in front of my eyes. As this started to happen as I was
gathering all the items in my list in order to get things tested and
implemented on time since I put myself to a dead line of 1 year from
receiving my Losmandy GM8.
This
small structure was welded together in 2 equal parts and painted
with a primary coating which gives it the orange colour. The two
halves were welded together @CROW and the wheels were put in the
orange cubes you see at the end of this metal frame (to the right).
Roof
covering was one of the moments that really marked CROW. The GM8 was
there with the Skywatcher 80ED (best value for the money on astro
equipment) and small borrowed refractor for visual inspection.
The
first full setup that was there. No filter wheel but imaging was
already possible. Notice the hanging cables which were a fun thing
to battle with since the GM8 doesn't have "through the mount"
cabling. Robofocus in place for very smooth focusing action.
In
nearly no time the main scope arrived after a wonderful used scope
came up for the right price. The William Optics FLT-100 f/6.5 has
great optics and a hard to tune focuser.
Ancient History
The first steps
October 2003 was a great month. I discovered that the sky could be imaged. An M42 image by Russel Croman was found accidentaly on the web with usual "Oh my God!"...
A couple of e-mails later with Pedro Re I got even more confused but since I was strating to have doubts I was on the right track!
As I was already into amateur photography (slides, negative, Nikon Gear) I decided that this was the next thing I wanted to do. Little did I know that this was going to become my dearest hobby and it would allow me to develop further than I ever had.
Bought an EQ3 with RA and DEC motors as well as a 6" F5 Newtonian and I was ready to roll.
A week after that there was a Solar Eclipse in which I took my first astrophotographies. The sheer view of the Sun through H-alpha and Calcium scopes as well as a Herschel prism made it all worthwhile. I decided to really take the plunge into this hobby.
I was perfectly aware that this was a time consuming hobby and it was made mainly at night so I serached for a solution intead of looking at the problem. Th way I could make astronomy endur throughout my life was simple. A robotic observatory!
This was my first milestone. To understand what I wanted. Non attended operation was it so I needed to really understand the needs of such a system.
Since there were no privately owned robotic observatories in Portugal, Iberia or Europe I decided to make the first one and be a pioneer.
I must say I really understood what Galileo felt when he told people that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around back then. Some called me crazy. Others said impossible and only three said "It can be done!".
Rui Tripa and Pedro Mota were the other two guys along with Pedro Re.
I started to learn how to gaze at the sky and the mechanics behind all this. Even though we learn in school how this works, when you look at it yourself it all becomes evident and self explanatory.