Well, it's been two years now since purchasing the CGE1400 and embarking upon the path that has led to the establishment of the StarFarm. I thought it might be a good opportunity to both look back over how things got to the point they are at now, as well as looking toward what opportunities might lie in the immediate future. This is a thumbnail sketch of the "state" of the observatory now, as well as some thoughts for the future.
The observatory building, completed in July of 2007, continues to serve very well. No serious physical problems have arisen and no major modifications have been made or are presently contemplated. The observatory building is an 8-foot "diameter" octagon capped by a rotating dome. The details of it's construction are given here. The building houses one of the two CGE1400 telescopes, designated as the "A Rig".
There are two complete CGE1400 telescopes that comprise the main observing instruments for the StarFarm. Designated as "A Rig" and "B Rig", the prior is housed in the observatory while the latter is currently stored in the garage on a JMI Wheelie Bar and moved to it's observing location on the driveway. Both telescopes are equipped with laptop computers running Windows XP Pro. I made up some programming cables to allow direct connection of the laptops to their respective telescopes, which are both then controlled through Celestron's NexRemote software. Telescope pointing models are built and maintained using the MaxPoint software package from Diffraction Limited. Imaging and autoguiding are done using MaxIm DL/CCD, also from Diffraction Limited, while actual pointing and telescope control are effected using TheSky 6, Professional Edition from Software Bisque. Each telescope also has it's own wireless controller - a Logitech Wireless RumblePad II. Both telescopes can be controlled from my study using Microsoft's Remote Desktop. The "A" rig can also be controlled from virtually anywhere using LogMeIn Pro. It really isn't feasible to operate the telescope remotely at this time; the dome is not automated, there is no remote focus control, and the mount does not have the ability to recover it's pointing following a system crash or short power outage. These capabilities will be added, eventually, but are not a high priority just now.
Both of the main telescopes are Fastar models; it's not likely I'll ever use the Fastar option, but my understanding is that the optics and positioning and mounting of those optics is somewhat better in the Fastar models. The "A" rig has the newer "StarBright" coatings while the "B" rig (a 2003 model) does not. Neither OTA has been stringently tested but both seem to be more than adequate for the photometric observing programs they were acquired for.
As of the time of this report, the "B" rig is still having it's bugs squashed and is not yet 100% operational. It has seen use on three nights and on those nights has done very well, but there are some remaining hardware incompatibility issues.
One plan that will see further refinement in the coming months is to direct both telescopes to operate in unison while observing the same object and then combining their output to improve S/N. It is hoped that in so doing the resulting S/N will approach that of a single 20-inch telescope.
The observatory includes two main cameras. The first is a SBIG ST8-xme camera with a class-1 chip and CFW9 automated filter wheel, loaded with "Clear", B, V, R, and I filters. It is mounted on the "A" rig in the observatory, attached to an Antares off-axis guider manifold. This camera uses a SBIG Remote Guide Head as a second guiding option in case the internal guider cannot find a suitable guide star or for times when filters are used (as the internal guider is then behind filters as well). The second camera is a SBIG ST9-xe camera with a CFW8a automated filter wheel, currently without filters, and is attached to the "B" rig using a Taurus Tracker III OAG manifold, and uses a Meade DSI-I Pro monochrome camera as a secondary guider. In the near future I plan to send the second camera back to SBIG to have a remote guide head port installed, at which time I'll acquire another SBIG remote guide head. The DSI has a 0.5x focal reducer installed in it's nosepiece, which substantially increases it's field of view.