Utah Desert Remote Observatory Telescopes are Available

[theskyhound]

I see this morning that iTelescope has made the telescopes that were formerly hosted at New Mexico Skies available at the new site. It is nothing short of extraordinary that they could remove 8 telescopes, clean and upgrade them, and then re-install, align the mounts precisely, and make calibrations so quickly. I can only imagine that they hurried because of the comet.

I very much wish iTelescope to prove me wrong in my prediction that these telescopes will be a mess for some time to come. I don't have time to try them all right now, so if anyone uses them, please let me know how it goes. I will be releasing revised imaging systems in a week or so, and after that I'll have to spend some time with each one to get some better calibrations and to ensure that all of the equipment is up to date.

In the meantime, you can create a new location in SkyTools for the Utah observatory and assign that to each of the systems that have been moved.

[PMSchu]

Just attended the iTelescope Webinar about the new Utah observatory. Just learned that T68 is offline because the mount won't accept the PEC data to correct for the periodic error. ET for repair is unclear. The scopes will be usable to 15° above the horizon, maybe lower in the future. The horizon looks very good for the site. I gave SkyTools a plug FWIW. Said it can be used to offset C/2022 E3 (ZTF) away from the center of the frame. Christian may contact you about that feature.

Phil S.

[theskyhound]

Cool. I got some images on T21 last night but have not yet had the chance to look at them closely.

[theskyhound]

Did he mention when T02 will be online again?

[theskyhound]

I was able to review my images taken with T21. It appears to be working ok, at least for major things. My exposures were only 2 min, but it tracked ok during that time. Focus was good.

My target was the 19.0 magnitude Centaur (54598) Bienor, which orbits between 13 and 20 AU. It is currently near it's closest point to the sun and near opposition.

Here is a cropped portion of the 15-image stack:

   

[PMSchu]

HHi Greg,

No mention of when T02 will be online. Cool capture of the Centaur with 2 min exposures. 

Phil S.