First images from Rooisand Remote with Voyager Advanced

Your Shot with Voyager
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Hello group!

Since mid-May, the three of us have been running a remote observatory at Rooisand Desert Farm in Namibia. We have put the first such observatory into operation there, more will be built by the farm owner and can then be rented. If you have any questions, please send us a personal message (we are not the operators!).

This was a good time to switch from “Voyager normal” to Voyager Advanced - the many clear nights in Namibia simply invite further automation. RoboTarget makes the whole thing very convenient.

Since the start-up, we have collected a lot of raw images and would like to show you the first results here. One of the most interesting images I find is the one of NGC 3109, as I didn’t expect the remnants of GUM 12.
We are using a 250 mm f/4 Lacerta Newton and a QHY 268m, all on an EQ8.

“first light” - NGC 3201 in Vela, LRGB:

GUM 51 in Norma, Ha-LRGB:

NGC 6067 in Norma, LRGB:

NGC 5460 in Centaurus, LRGB:

Messier 83 in Hydra, LRGB:

NGC 3109 in Hydra, Ha-LRGB:

Messier 55 in Sagittarius, LRGB:

Messier 22 in Sagittarius, LRGB:

Comet C/2021 T4 Lemmon on 2023-07-20:

All the best,
Markus, Oliver and Faried

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Certainly worthwhile seeing these at full resolution. Congrats.

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Lovely looking images, some sites really lend themselves to imaging don’t they. I have not imaged in a coupl eof months as this years winter weather where I live has been dire for astronomy.

Voyager Advanced is in my opinion certainly worth the price. I am just starting the build (Finally) of a roll off roof shed for several scopes at my property and the automation simplicity of advanced in being able to set up multiple targets and let Voyager shoot whichever is most appropriate at any time is great. EVen without an observatory it is worth it for me.

One of the scopes on my place belongs to a friend and he has just fitted a Nitecrawler focuser/rotator to it so I will be really encouraging him to move to advanced now from a basic license. That will allow him to really take advantage of the rotator by being able to set up multiple targets without needing to consider pointing angle. I do not have a rotator so I currently set up groups of targets where I can use the same pointing angle.

I may have to set his scope up on one of my piers for a couple of nights to demonstrate to him what the benefit of advanced is.

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