Telescope Live: Moving to a New Observatory in Australia

After more than four years we decided to shut down operations at Warrambungle Observatory in Australia, decommission our Meade LX200, and move home to a new observatory located nearby, nearby Yass – NSW, Australia, where we are installing a new Takahashi FSQ-ED.

This choice was driven by the need of a larger space for future expansion, better local support, better connectivity, and a very old dome that required replacement.

Our new observatory in Australia is Heaven’s Mirror Observatory, in New South Wales. This is a modern facility with a shared roll-off roof, offering premium local support, fast connectivity with 4G fallback, and the option of future expansion.

Warrambungle Observatory, a few miles away from Siding Spring Observatory, home to the largest telescopes in the country, has been pivotal in the development of Telescope Live, hosting various prototypes used to test the robotic algorithms behind the Telescope Live platform. We wish to thank Peter Starr and his staff who looked after our scope over the last few years.

Is the world plotting against your observations? Start now your 1-week free trial and immediately access tons of top-notch quality data.

Try it free

How have we been affected by the recent fires in Australia?

News of bush fires sweeping across North South Wales have been published almost daily for the past few months. Driven by the record-breaking temperatures, this fire season has been catastrophic, with at least 33 people dying, 18.6 million acres of forest burnt, and over 5900 building destroyed. Wildlife has also been dramatically affected, with an estimated 480 million animals dying.

Obviously operations of every observatory in the area has been affected, including Warrambungle Observatory and Heaven’s Mirror Observatory, which have been shut most of the time due to smoke and dust storms.

Fortunately, the situation is now improving. Recent rain and the approaching autumn are bringing some relief to Australia, and will allow to resume operations at our new site. However, the level of alert in the area is still very high, and the risk of smoke clouds covering the skies is still present.