Grove Creek Observatory's Internet Telescopes

PUBLIC INTERNET TELESCOPES

Image the southern sky and northern sky from anywhere in the world!
Go to SkyLive, register for a username and download the free client software.
Select Telescope 5 or Telescope 6 and you are connected to Grove Creek!
Free to chat and view the live CCD images!

Remote telescopes powered by:

Regional Satellite Internet

NEWS - PLEASE CHECK THIS SECTION OFTEN:

TELESCOPE 5 & 6 ARE BACK ON-LINE!
The USB ports on Telescope 5 has been repaired by Greg Ford. The problem for Telescope 6 was due to a faulty PC power supply.
The GTO-1200 mount still requires a firmware upgrade to v4.17 to fix pointing bugs but for the time being, it is now operational.
MANY THANKS TO GCO STAFF MEMBER GREG FORD FOR CONDUCTING THE REPAIRS, WHILE STEVEN WAS UNWELL.

Centring objects, manual focusing and GOTO errors are now a thing of the past:
The SkyLive team have extensively upgraded the telescope's server PC with some powerful tools.
Although manual at the moment, the system will auto-focus and use astrometric calculations to
synchronise the real sky with that of the telescope. Very soon, this will be automatic. However,
during the testing phase and you see Ivan or Steven, we are able to fix focus and pointing with a
few clicks of the mouse. The pointing will make the telescope arc minute accurate! You just simply
GOTO your object, synchronise and the GOTO the object again - it will be perfectly centred.

The 2 SkyLive Telescopes at Grove Creek Observatory, Australia:

"Telescope 5"

Meade 12" LX-200 Schmidt Cassegrain
SBIG ST-10 and CFW-6a Filter Wheel
Focal Length = 1,765mm Aperture = 300mm Focal Ratio = f/5.88
Field of View = 19.5 x 28.9^mins. Image Scale =0.79^secs/pixel
R V B C I Photometric filters Installed

"Telescope 6"

Celestron C-14 Schmidt Cassegrain
SBIG ST-8XME and CFW-10a Filter Wheel
Focal Length = 2,457mm Aperture = 356mm Focal Ratio = f/6.92
Field of View = 12.8 x 19.2^mins. Image Scale = 0.752^secs/pixel
R G B Ha SII OIII and BVR filters Installed

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR RECENT IMAGES TAKEN WITH OUR SYSTEMS

Anyone can logon, chat to other users and view the live CCD images for free. If you want to control the telescopes,
take and save images yourself, there is a yearly club membership fee of 150€ (Euro) for use of all the 6 telescopes.
Grove Creek does not receive any of these funds.
All membership fees are to improve the SkyLive service and SkyLive is a non profit organisation.
GROVE CREEK AND SKYLIVE STAFF GIVE THEIR TIME FOR FREE
Grove Creek staff share telescope use and are not able to provide online support to users.
Enquires about membership fees and support must be directed to SkyLive

OBSERVING SITE DATA:
Grove Creek Observatory, Trunkey Creek, Australia:
Latitude: 33° 49' 46.5" South. Longitude: 149° 21' 58.8" East. Elevation: 919m. Time Zone: +11 UT (AEDT)
Click here for the LIVE weather conditions at the Grove Creek Observatory

SkyLive Observatory in Sicily, Italy (Telescopes 1 - 4):
Latitude: 37° 36' 09.4" North. Longitude: 15° 04' 15.1" East. Elevation: 495m. Time Zone: +2UT

Need to convert times for your local location? Download Microsoft Time Zone and add
"Sydney, Australia" and "Rome, Italy". Then you have the local telescope times.

Click here for instructions and downloads on how to slew the telescopes
using SkyMap Planetarium software locally from your own PC

Need some help? Click here for some tours on the easy-to-use online telescope client.
Still stuck? Please email SkyLive directly.

What is the SkyLive Project?


Ivan Bellia President	Giovanni Verga Vice President	Franco Lanza Programmer	Sandro Aliano SkyLive Software	Giorgio Bianciardi Public Relations	Steven Williams Grove Creek

The SkyLive Telescope project is a non-profit joint collaboration between SkyLive in Italy and the Grove Creek Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. It consists of two fully internet remote controlled telescopes, one a Meade 12" LX-200 & SBIG ST-10 CCD camera, housed in Grove Creek's Western Observatory and the other a Celestron C14 on a Astro-Physics 1200-GTO with a SBIG ST-8 CCD camera, housed in the middle observatory. Both buildings are motorised remote controlled sliding-roof type observatories located west of the main domed observatory at Grove Creek. The telescopes are provided by Grove Creek to SkyLive at no cost, for the benefit of the general public, amateur and professional astronomers.

History & Description:

On the 3rd of November, 2007, we were contacted by the managers of the SkyLive project in Italy, Mr. Ivan Bellia and Mr. Giovanni Verga. They asked us if we would be interested in being part of a remote internet telescope system that was involved with the Italian Astronomical Union. We already had a remote internet telescope in place for the past 3 years for Wheaton College in the USA, called the Wheaton Telescope but this was for the exclusive use of Wheaton students only. Since we closed down public tours in September 2007, we now had available telescopes that could be used for such dedicated roles. However, we wanted to ensure that our non-profit status was kept and that any other organisation we worked with in the future, would have the same goals as Grove Creek - providing access to our wonderful universe to the general public, at no profit as a public service. SkyLive shared our goals and ideals and we decided to go ahead. SkyLive was granted exclusive European use of the Grove Creek Observatory.

The "Western Observatory" at Grove Creek (housing Telescope 5)

The roof opens from the middle, with 2 motors on the southern side, remote controlling each half of the roof.
This building is located 30 meters west of the main domed observatory, measuring 5.6 meters x 4.6 meters.
"Telescope 5", (a hardware modified 12" Meade Classic LX-200), is installed on the central pier inside this building.

Steven Williams (Managing Astronomer of Grove Creek) set-up a test system on the central pier of the western observatory, using a spare Meade 12" LX-200 that had been packed away. This telescope had suffered constant blown motherboards and GOTO motors and was left over from the Wheaton Telescope Project. With permission from Professor Tim Barker from Wheaton College, the old telescope was totally upgraded with a new motherboard and GOTO motors. Previously, this model of telescope's tracking could not be turned off, without losing its known position in the sky. These extensive upgrades solved those issues and we are very grateful to Prof. Barker, for the use of the instrument. Many thanks also to Andrew Mattingly, who was kind enough to donate counterweights, that balanced the telescope perfectly as well as allowing us to use the 2nd output of the Kendrick Dew system, installed on the Wheaton Telescope, for the dew heater of the 12". By using a 2" star diagonal in the optical path for the CCD camera, allows full clearance right to the south pole:

Tiny & faint Polarissima Australis, taken at Grove Creek
NGC2573 - the most southern NGC object at -89° 20'
Our telescope is set-up in such a way, that we can image right at the pole

The 12" LX-200 (installed with an Optec 5X MaxField focal reducer) can now take unguided exposures of the Southern Sky up to 4 minutes (south of -25° declination) without any star trailing! Normally unheard of, for a LX-200. Many nights were spent to polar align the LX-200 exactly, as the telescope control software uses no "error mapping" software and with such a well aligned system, no longer requires any. Objects land on the CCD sensor every time and by "right clicking" on the image in the client software, enables you to exactly centre the selected object. Other enhancements were made to the telescope, like an addition of a 18VDC (newer Meade telescopes use 12V) trickle charged back-up battery system, that automatically switches if mains power is lost. This is so the telescope does not lose its position of the sky. We also installed a laser viewfinder and a web camera, with a red LED that shows the declination setting circle, to assist with syncing the telescope remotely.


Modification showing a web camera on a binocular tripod mount, screwed into the declination arm. (Allows staff to use the internet to check the setting circle)	Fixed laser viewfinder used to "sync" the telescope on a known star. Fixed lasers are LEGAL. Click here for details.

This new test system then went online in Italy and took its "first light" image on the 18th of November, 2007. The SkyLive software points the telescope and operates the CCD cameras on the telescope computer side at Grove Creek, which then communicates (using highly compressed data) via our two-way internet satellite service to the server in Italy. Users then logon to the server, via the use of an interactive client software package that they download for free. All the software on both the telescope and server sides were written by SkyLive and do not use any commercial astronomical packages! You can even slew the telescope using free planetarium software installed on your PC. Anyone can watch and download the live CCD images as they come down (the image area is updated every 3 seconds) - a yearly club membership fee, to help cover costs, is only charged for users that wish to actually control the telescope and take images themselves. You can even chat to other users and discuss the images being taken, or even ask for support, as each telescope its own live chat box! Now that is cool :-)

The "Middle Observatory" at Grove Creek (housing Telescope 6):

The roof opens from the middle, with a motor on the south/east side and another motor on the north/west side.
This building is located 15 meters south/west of the main domed observatory, measuring 7.08 meters x 4.65 meters.
"Telescope 6", (a C14 on a Astro-Physics 1200GTO mount), is installed on a Astro-Physics pier in the centre of this building.

Automatic Roof Motors were installed by Brett Soames.

As room in the Western Observatory was at a premium, Jim Lynch, the Director of Grove Creek, kindly paid for the completion and motorisation of the middle building at Grove Creek. In exchange for Grove Creek providing free access to an additional telescope, SkyLive was willing to donate a high quality mount. We decided to purchase a Astro-Physics 1200GTO German Equatorial mount and was very satisfied with the results. The new mount arrived on the 27th of December and initially, we decided to use the new mount with Steven's Pentax 100 SDUF for very wide field work. Ivan sent out his SBIG ST-10 CCD camera and CFW-8a 5 position filter wheel, that has small pixels to compliment such a high quality wide field instrument.

However, on May 20th 2008, we decided to use Grove Creek's massive C14 on this mount - the 2nd one every built by Celestron that has outstanding optics. The ST-10 was then swapped to the Meade 12" LX-200 for photometric studies and the SBIG ST-8XME was installed on the C14, running at f/6.92 using a focal reducer and a serial controlled SBIG CFW10a 10 position filter wheel. The C14 provides a field of view of 12.8^min high, by 19.2^mins wide and image scale (aka pixel ratio) of 0.752^secs/pixel at BIN1x1. Most of the SkyLive members use the C14 at BIN2x2, where the pixel ratio is 1.5^sec/pixel. With the excellent seeing conditions at Grove Creek, BIN1x1 is certainly usable at most times, despite that the "magic number" of any given CCD or telescope, is normally matched to 1^second per pixel, due to seeing conditions. The results from the current ST8XME CCD camera have been staggering, especially since installing the new CCD filters were installed in August 2008, which were kindly donated to the project by Marco Angelini.

We hope to upgrade the CCD imaging system on the C14 to a large format Kodak SLT-1001E detector. The ST8XME and the new filters, could then be installed back on the 12" LX-200. We would then gain over 400% increase in field of view and twice the sensitivity. With the dark skies at Grove Creek, this would make the system one of the best available long focal length remote internet telescopes available in the world.

Astro-Physics guarantee 1200-GTO mounts to have a periodical error of 5 arc seconds or less, before PEC (Periodical Error Control) hardware training. However, the performance of the long focal length of 2,457mm of the C14 on this new mount came as somewhat a nice surprise, as the periodical error of the mount was an amazing 2.14 arc second WITHOUT PEC enabled! This was further trained down to 1.18^sec, using Pempro. This enables unguided exposures up to 4 minutes. However, the SkyLive client software enables automatic guiding of this mount and this option be checked whenever possible. Unfortunately, as is normal to some extent with German Equatorial Mounts and large Schmidt Cassegrain Telescopes, we do have a small orthogonal error with the Losmandy dovetail plate, despite locking the primary mirror and spending hours installing thin shims. As a result, the pointing can be out as much as 15^mins - however, Ivan Bellia has recently installed automatic pin-point astrometric centring, so objects are always near centre of the chip and automatic software focus checking for every object. Even so, the SkyLive software easily allows you to centre and frame any object you desire. The mount is polar aligned within 1^min of the South Celestial Pole.

Putting the new Astro-Physics 1200-GTO Mount together...

The previous Pentax (now awaiting a 900GTO mount) and the new C14 on the new 1200GTO mount

The CCD Filters on the ST8XME CCD camera:

The 10 filters installed in the serial driven SBIG CFW10a 10 position filter wheel are:
1-Red, 2-Green, 3-Blue, 4-Luminence (Use as a "Clear Filter"), 5-Ha, 6-SII, 7-OII and photometric 8-R, 9-V, 10-B
The drop down filter selection box in the software lists them as R G B L H S O r v b D (for Dark Frame)

The RVB (filters 8/9/10) are NOT par focal! You must pre-book the telescope so we can focus them for you!

Astronomik Type2c LRGB Filter set:
(Click on the above link for filter product information)
With these filters, 1 to 4, you can take true colour images of objects with high transmission. The RGB filters
block IR at ~1150nm. The Luminance filter has UV and IR block coatings (this is the difference between a "clear" filter).
The L has the same transmission the RGB filters and gives no colour-shifting when combining LRGB images. This is why
we advise you use "LRGB" colour combine, rather than a "RGB" one, as you will achieve much better results!

A G2V calibration has been performed to match the RGB filters with the CCD camera and C14 optics.

THE RATIO IS AS FOLLOWS - RED = 1:1 GREEN = 1:1.15 BLUE = 1:1.01

Here is a list of "white" GTV Stars for CCD Calibration.
We suggest taking equal exposures for LRGB and stretch them to the above ratios, which saves on multiple dark frames.

Astronomik Hydrogen Alpha 656nm (new 13nm bandpass),
Sodium II and Oxygen III Narrow Band Filters:
(Click on the above filter name for product information)
With these narrow band filters, 5 to 7, not only can you use them for monochrome images, but also as false colour "tricolour"
imaging of emission lines of nebulae. These filters can provide stunning details of objects, which is impossible to see visually.

Astrodon Schuler Rs V B Photometric Filters:
These filters, 8 to 10, are not parfocal with the other filters 28mm filters, as they are 4mm thick (but they are close).
If you want to use these filters, book 24 hours in advance with the time and duration (in UT only!) and we will focus for you.
These filters are very high quality and are based upon Bessell's 1992 modification of the Johnson-Cousins design. They
are used by "The American Association of Variable Star Observers" (AAVSO) as well as professional observatories.

We would like to thank Marco Angelini for the donation of the Astronomik Filters.
Thanks also to the AAVSO, Tim Barker and Andrew Mattingly for the loan of the
Astrodon filters and use of the SBIG CFW10a serial driven filter wheel.

The Weather Station and Boltwood Cloud Sensor - Protecting the Remote Observatories:

The wireless Weather Station showing sensors (Cloud Sensor at top) and receiver system.

Our "Observatory Server" in the main control room, constantly sends out data from our Weather Station and Boltwood Cloud Sensor to the computers controlling the telescopes for roof control, with software and relay hardware to control the roof motors. The Boltwood Cloud Sensor not only monitors cloud conditions but it is so sensitive, that only a tiny sprinkling of rain is needed to instantly trigger the observatories to close and lock. (The cloud sensor is that white, angled tube at the top of the mast). The weather station will also signal the Telescope Control Computers to trip the roof relays to automatically close if rain is detected, the humidity becomes too high, high winds are present, the internet connection is lost or if the sun is about to rise.

We use the Oregon Scientific, model WMR918, wireless professional weather station (shown above) to safeguard the remote observatories. The weather station also provides the Trunkey Creek area with helpful online weather information and detailed historic data. For this, we use the FreeWX Weather Software written by Andy Keir, which reads the data from the serial port on the weather station to display useful weather data in a graphical form as well as uploading the data via FTP, to our Online Weather Web Page. We also have a G-Star night-sky video camera, to send updates to our weather page to show users our live night sky, every 5 minutes.

Hundreds of people per day access our Online Live Weather Station.
Live Cloud Graph! Live Wide-Field Deep Sky Night Camera! Weather Data every 10 minutes!
If you are a SkyLive user, this link is a MUST to save and use!

Suggested Software for SkyLive Telescope Users:
Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Microsoft Time Zone, The Sky, CCDSoft

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