Evening, this is also our worst time of year in Spain as a whole also, Mid-March through to November is the best time to image in Spain and in between those times it's more hit-and-miss with the Spanish wet season, and we have to choose our imaging times when we can and the data has to be checked a little more judiciously.

However, once that changes in March you will struggle to keep up with the data, it can get a little overwhelming at times so other members have told us.

Steve

I have been a member of Pier 3 since August and the data was really good until the humidity went up. When sky conditions and seeing are good Pier 3 is almost almost over sampled. Because of this as soon as the sky conditions and seeing are slightly below good then the scope becomes over sampled and the glorious star halos and fuzziness begin.
I want to see compare a data set from the new Pier 4 with ASA12 and the the big pixels on the ASI2400.

Daniel

Well, I guess I will have to wait and see if things improve. I still think a more than 3 to one ratio of poor to useable data is a lot. I would rather get nothing than unusable data. Most of the failed data sets are due to cloud or poor focusing. Obviously the first of these is difficult to deal with, but surely the poor focus should be resolvable? 

I have to agree with Clarkey that the data coming out of Pier 3. Most are unusable since the time i joined in early Jan 2024. While clouds may be one thing which is in no ones control, but bad framing and focus issues certainly are.....see attached screenshot of my findings on the datasets available since early jan 2024....vikas

Well, the camera has died. If you stretch one of the images you will see it is a chess board. Steve is currently making all the travel arrangements to fly to Spain to replace the camera and make all the new calibration frames.

The last dataset 2469 p3 LBN912 1086 is still workable. If you have PixInsight Calibrate the data with bias and flats and then run integerResample to software bin the data. If you don't have PI let me know and I can share the software binned subs.

Daniel

Ok, the  flights booked for the 9th March, it's the fastest we could get considering needing a new camera etc

Apologies about this but we are dealing with this as fast as we can. However,  breakdowns happen even with new equipment :(

Steve

Still more work to be done but the LBN912 data is workable.

Pier-3 camera has now been swapped, and the pier is back up and running!

Steve

cool, are there new calibration frames?

Great stuff. Thanks for the prompt action.👍

Darks are being taken this evening and flats over the next few days when we have a moment.

In the meantime, the pier queue will be marked as complete and all part finished datasets will be shared, it means a fresh start with the pier queue as the new camera angle is close but not exactly the same

I will share the new camera angle as soon as we have it :)

Steve

PS, please consider following my guidelines for our acquisition software this time:

• 8-12 current jobs spread about the sky, which allows for better use of the moon avoidance system we have in place
• 4/6 forward jobs rising from around 4am, dawn to mid-morning so it picks them up as they rise, these can be added on a rolling basis as forward jobs move into current and get completed

I promise you, you will all receive way more data than simply filling the queue with a million jobs it does not have a hope in hells chance of completing :0

We will roll out the new daily data share system as soon as it's feasible also

The Pier queue is now empty, and all partial data sets will be shared over the coming days as they zip up and percolate across to our server

We will put a small test job in this evening that we will share asap

Steve

The new camera angle is 270º

Unfortunately, I now have 281 Gb of unusable data as most of the partial data sets were affected by the camera failure and clouds. It is very frustrating - 5 complete images and 36 partial data sets in 5 months. In the same time I have managed 10 images from Cumbria of 8 hours or more - and this has been by far my worst imaging year since 2020.

I really hope this is just an anomaly and things improve soon.

Ian

I feel your frustration Ian... This has been a particularly cloudy winter, and of course the camera issue on P3 didn't help, although as a subscriber to two other piers whose cameras have been working fine I can tell you that you didn't miss much...

Hopefully the fact that the team jumped on a plane to fix the camera for you and the other P3 subscribers is enough to convince you that they are really committed to delivering great service, which has been my experience since joining. Also, I can tell you that when the clouds do finally clear, the datasets will be coming in so fast you will barely be able to keep up! Stacking a new dataset, processing one that just finished stacking, submitting a new request - all these become pretty much daily tasks during this joyous time :)

As a side note, I can tell you that you definitely did not make a mistake by selecting P3 - on paper this pier is one of the best long focal length setups available anywhere, with a near perfect balance of speed and resolution. A dataset I was gifted last year from this pier certainly did not disappoint - pretty impressive for only 5hrs of total integration time, even with this amateur's processing skills :)

I have no worries about the work / effort put in by the Roboscopes team. And yes, the camera failure really did not help matters.

Now I am just waiting for the spring data influx.....

Unfortunately, the NW of the UK has also had appalling cloud this winter. I have only managed 3 good nights of imaging since September. I need to find the part of the world that is getting less cloud due to global warming!!!

Even the south is effected this year as it's an El Niño year

That's the problem with "Global" warming I suppose., its effects the whole globe, I also suspect this is why the whole of Europe has been bathed in cloud since December!

Although in none El Niño years the SH seems less affected in my opinion, it's the main reason we have 4 scopes being built for Chile now, that and the fact we really want to do the southern skies :)

The only drawback to Chile is price, as it's way more expensive in reality, its £5k in shipping per setup, plus import duty, installation and hosting fees. This makes our Spanish pricing unviable but you as customers at least have a choice :)

Once the Spanish rainy season passes, the skies and data more than makes up for its extended winter hiatus, however!

Steve

TEST REPLY - PLEASE IGNORE

TEST EMAIL REPLY - PLEASE IGNORE

Australia has been affected to a large extent, Chile far less so. Probably why the ESO chose that location. Regarding the pricing for Chile that's understandable given the expense of getting stuff there. Now had you chosen Namibia then you could have used your trusty/rusty van to drive down there. :) That's if the air con works.

No reply as of yet to a message sent to you over a month ago regarding the new obs. 

Cheers 

Ray