Astrophotography (AP) on the road?

[MikeMardis]

Looking to start picking the brains of anyone who has gone there before me.  I have all my AP equipment running off 12v deep cycle batteries, which I currently setup in my yard or out at our local club's astronomy field.

I have a small home built tear drop trailer which I hope to tow behind a 4WD Ford Excursion pretty soon.  I'm currently towing with a Ford Ranger with a camper shell.  The camper is set up to sleep one.  It has AC and a TV.  The kitchen has no sink and no gas or water.  Assumption is that I will cook on a small electrical grill.  Current assumption is to travel with a generator and a five gallon tank of gas and another five gallon tank of drinking water.  Probably add a propane tank and a compatible grill to the list as well. I have a shower tent for privacy and a canopy to extend out the back of the kitchen as a sitting area.  The generator and tanks will sit in the back of the tow vehicle.  Same with my astrophotography equipment (About 100 pounds) during transport.

Planning to add solar and to add some windows in the sides of the tear drop.  I need the solar setup powerful enough to charge my 100 amp hour AP battery during the day, and another tear drop battery to support my laptop, lights, fans, TV, and a refrigerator also during the day time while I sleep.  Drainage on the tear drop battery if nearly zero during the night, but the AP battery is usually drained before dawn.

Haven't done the arithmetic on my power draw, but I plan to start with four solar panels with an MPPT controller for everything but the AC.  I figure the AC will require another four panels.  Doubt I can fit all these panels on my trailer and tow vehicle, so I'm planning on setting them on the ground with an extended wire to the controller on the trailer.

If anyone's interested in my equipment I plan to travel with a CGM DX mount and tripod, a Williams Optics GTF80 refractor, and an ATIK1200 camera with filter wheel and focuser.  It's got a computer based sky registry, a finder scope, and a polar scope to take some of the drudgery out of the hobby. After awhile I plan to reallocate my Meade 10" SCT to AP. Currently it serves just as a viewing scope.

 

[Elbear1]

Man thats a hell of a mount for mobile. And overkill for a WO80. If you got the room .... but space is a prememium when you actually do this full time. Honestly I would prefer to stay >1000mm just cause of that. Or run a 6" something at f/8 - f/10 with like a serius size mount. cause you will have inky black skies but 6-7 months of year you aint getting above 500-3500ft so youd be over-sampling without binning anyway.

Youre not going to need dew heaters out here so 100AH is way overkill. Not sure how much the peltier cooler on the atik pulls but the mount wont use hardly any power. I assume youre using laptop for camera?

If you can afford it go with lithium batteries and 100ah with a generator as backup will suffice. If not you basically want as much solar as you can get. Santan solar has super cheap used panels. You can get 600w+ for around $200. Thats what i would recommend or youll end up running generator several hours. If you get lithium you can go with half that.

If youre going to use generator you got to get a decent aftermarket converter for the trailer around 35-60a range. The stock converters dont charge very fast.

 

[MikeMardis]

Sounds like you know what you're talking about.  That's refreshing.  Expect to hear a lot from me.

I'll respond paragraph by paragraph to you comments above: 

Yes, when I first got into AP three years ago the people at the club said don't scrimp on the mount--hence the DX.  It's a monster to lug about, but it's my portable mount.  It should also be large enough to handle my 10" SCT when I get around to it.  I have a CGE Pro on a concrete pillar in my home observatory.

The people in my club recommended I start with 80mm to learn the ins and outs of tracking.  My WO81GTF is 535mm focal length.  My SCT with field flattener/focal reducer will the 1,575 (if I've figured the 6.3 field flattener/focal reducer right), so tracking will be much more sensitive.

Yes, I figured the dew heaters wouldn't be needed.  They're mandatory here in Georgia.  I also have a Moonlite autofocuser.  The ATIK is rated at 2.5a including the filter wheel.  Yes I use a laptop with SSD for disk to run Sequence Generator Pro and PHD2.

Generator vs solar?  I originally planned to travel with a generator, but after checking web sites for a couple of places (Big Bend and Yellowstone) it appears generators are very restricted.  Ideally I would camp at the same site as my observing so I won't have to break down and set up each day.  In my mind a camp ground implies trees and with electricity it implies lights.  Am I correct in assuming I'll need to plan on boon docking?  Will I have trouble finding dark sky sites where daytime generator use is permitted?

When you say using a generator I'll need a decent aftermarket converter 35-60a, are you referring to an inverter?  I was planning to run a Generac 2000iQ, and if I need more due to sleeping during the daytime with AC should I not want to leave the low lands as quickly as everyone else, then I'll run a second one in parallel.

The whole solar thing looks rather complicated since I'm traveling in a teardrop.  I don't have much roof space and will need to spread the panels out on the ground.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Elbear1]

Ok i will address the generator. No not an inverter (although youll need one of those too). A converter is an RV dc power supply and batery charger. It takes 120v and converter to 12v....the opposite of an inverter.

You run everything off battery in your camper. You charge it it with solar and generator battery charger (converter). Generator is big amperage charge. Solar is relatively long and slow charge. It makes no sense to have only a generator and is very expensive in gas if you try to idle all day.

Well all boondock. Campgrounds are extremely expensive and generally terrible. You will want to boondock. You do not need air conditiong. You simply go up and down elevation. Seeing your breath in the morning in july is not hard to achieve. For AP you want those high elevations anyway...less atmosphere.

For solar you just do what you can. Its very simple operation. Its all low voltage and straight forward. Fit the truck with panels. Fit the teardrop with panels. And get a folding suitcase. Amazon has 120w folding panels for $225. 2 of those plus a 310w ($100 in phoenix) on your truck shell will mean no generator at all.

You can also get a DC to DC charger you connect to your alternator. Many go totally without a generator.

As for the mount if you can fit it fine. With SCT's def go off-axis guiding. The flexure gets obnoxious even with 3" dovetails. and a 10' plus the 80mm on top getting heavy. But know that limiting resolution even at 10k ft elevation is around 600-800mm depending on pixel size. So the only reason to go beyond that is framing. But youre not picking up detail.

I would personally hit astromart and go with a 6" Ritchey-Chretien on a sirius or equivelent size. I love the orion because of tye stepper motors personally. I cant remember if you celestron has them but steppers allow being driven off open source. But idk what the bed of the truck will look like packed up. If you got the room....