Episode 86 - Nate from Astropeak Observatories

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Welcome BAAACK to The Astrocast! This week, Roo sits down with Nathan from Astropeak Observatories, to talk about what it's like to actually take the dive in to opening a remote observatory! We get in to the challenges, the rewards, and how to pick the best spot, and a WHOLE lot more! Special thanks to Mark Linley for the poem shared near the end of the show! If you've ever wondered about imaging remotely from a truly dark location, this is the episode for you!

If you would like to support the show AND reserve a founders pier at Astropeak, join our Patreon today! You'll get access to the Astrocast Society Discord, where the family meets every single day to talk all things astro! Not only that, but you'll get a DISCOUNT on your pier at Astropeak, that's a win win! Can't wait to see you there!

Thanks so much to Nate for taking the time to sit down and talk with us, and we'll definitely keep you updated on how things go! I personally can't WAIT for May! 

Credit for Music:

"Mana Two - Part 2" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

00;00;18;12 - 00;00;24;09
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Roo
...

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Unknown
Nine Eight. Seven. Six.

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Unknown
You are listening to The Astrocast!

00;00;50;20 - 00;01;09;15
Roo
Welcome back to the Astro cast. I'm your host. Roo. Today is Thursday, February 5th, 2026.

00;01;09;17 - 00;01;40;17
Roo
The full moon is starting to fade. It was a beautiful one. The, the snow moon was an actual snow moon in Charlotte this year. So I haven't talked to you guys in a week, but we ended up getting a, historical amount of snow in Charlotte over the weekend. So it started on, Saturday morning about 7 a.m., and it kept going until midnight.

00;01;40;17 - 00;02;06;22
Roo
And at some points it was just pouring down snow outside, which is very uncommon in North Carolina. Charlotte, North Carolina. Anyway, we're towards South Carolina. We're on the southern part of the state. This folks up in Raleigh gets snow every year. But we, haven't seen snow like that in 20 years and ended up being the third highest total in the last hundred year, or I think all time since they started recording weather in Charlotte.

00;02;06;23 - 00;02;34;19
Roo
Third highest total. From what I read. So definitely, a cool, cool environment, to spend a few days in, but definitely not clear skies either. So happy to get some clear skies back. But, with all that being said, I have a, very, very special guest with us here today. So, I have been talking about, this particular man for a couple of weeks now on this show and the discord if you're a member.

00;02;34;21 - 00;02;41;03
Roo
And I'm happy to have Nathan from Astro Peak Observatory. He's joining us today. How are you doing today, Nate? Good.

00;02;41;03 - 00;02;44;04
Nathan
Ro, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

00;02;44;06 - 00;03;05;25
Roo
Thanks, man. And, truth be told, this is the the second time I'm talking tonight. So if any of it sounds a little bit weird, it's because we actually had this conversation two nights ago. And, unfortunately, I had some, audio issues, and basically all of the audio was completely unrecoverable. So we're going to talk again, aren't we, Nate?

00;03;05;26 - 00;03;09;18
Nathan
Hey, we're just going to get deeper into this is going to be fun.

00;03;09;21 - 00;03;20;07
Roo
Exactly, exactly. So thanks so much for coming on the show, man. So why don't you, before we get to do you, why don't you tell us what, what the observatory is all about?

00;03;20;14 - 00;03;46;04
Nathan
Yeah. So we're building an observatory, a remote observatory down in southwest Utah. We're about an hour and 15 minutes north of Saint George. And so kind of on the southern end of the Great Basin, dark skies. So Great Basin National Park is really popular. Place to to go see dark skies. There's quite a few star parties out there, and we're just kind of at the southern tip of where, those, those dark skies start.

00;03;46;07 - 00;03;56;05
Roo
Oh, man. That's that's a really good location to be right there by National Park, too. That's got to be awesome. Do you ever stop by the. I mean, you must. Right? You've lived in Utah for a long time, right?

00;03;56;06 - 00;04;16;18
Nathan
Yeah, I've lived in Utah my whole life. And that entire region, all of southern Utah, is just one of the most magnificent dark sky locations. It's high elevation, very low humidity. And then just not not a lot of artificial light. And so it's it's a really fun place to, to observe the night sky fan.

00;04;16;20 - 00;04;45;15
Roo
I bet. You know, so many of us, who've lived most of our lives on the East Coast, myself included, don't really know what those high elevation western and Midwestern skies actually look like, and they really are night and day. Have you ever seen, like, let me ask you this. Have you ever been to a so-called dark sky site on the East Coast, or have you have you been lucky enough to only see the dark skies out west?

00;04;45;17 - 00;04;57;26
Nathan
I have, I've been to a couple on the East Coast and I need to I need to say this politely without offending. But there's no such thing as dark skies east of the Mississippi.

00;04;58;02 - 00;05;24;03
Roo
Okay? It's very dark. No, I, I kind of thought you might. You might say that, and from what I've been told, it wouldn't surprise me too much, because it really is night and day, particularly with, like, how good the scene can get and just the elevation. I mean, the elevation alone, you know, up here, 2000ft is very, very high in the Appalachian Mountains.

00;05;24;03 - 00;05;29;29
Roo
But where you're located and specifically where Astro Peak's going to be, what's your elevation?

00;05;29;29 - 00;05;57;26
Nathan
We're right about 50 500ft. So ironically, that's actually quite low for the area. But, one thing that was really important to us is the seeing conditions. We actually tested quite a few sites in southern Utah over the last couple of months. And, some, some people may remember who are really early adopters of Astro Peak. Well, may may remember a site that we spoke about that was about 7100, 17 100ft elevation.

00;05;57;26 - 00;06;20;26
Nathan
And we really liked that site. It was really dark and really high. But when you when we ran a lot of our seeing reports, it just it just wasn't good sometimes out here West. And when you get some of these high elevation sites and you're in your near mountains, especially, the air can get kind of turbulent. And so we found this spot, over in the southwest part of the state that was like I said, it's about 5500ft.

00;06;20;26 - 00;06;43;00
Nathan
But man, the seeing is just incredible. On calm nights, on calm, on calm, clear nights. We're seeing see seeing. Well below, subsecond, you know, .8.7. Just just incredible. And so we kind of once you add it all up together, you know, you, you work on. Okay, how dark is the sky? Okay. How good is this seeing?

00;06;43;06 - 00;06;48;26
Nathan
We really felt like this location in southwest Utah was just going to be perfect for what we were trying to accomplish.

00;06;48;28 - 00;07;22;05
Roo
I mean, that that certainly sounds right. I've actually heard, Rick and Jeff talk about sub arc second seeing, because they've actually, they I think Rick, one of the two of them owns a place out in New Mexico. And they get to frequent some dark sky sites out west. And they had told me about a place that they visited that was indeed sub arc second seeing, which means that you can resolve things smaller than one arc second, and therefore your guiding can be just as good if I if I remember correctly, is that how you would define that?

00;07;22;07 - 00;07;38;14
Nathan
Yeah. You're guiding calms down a ton, especially with a lot of the harmonic mounts. Yeah. It yeah, things slow down and and guiding becomes a lot easier. And yeah, you can resolve, especially when you get to some of these high focal length scopes, you know, some of your shoots can do really, really well when you're sub arc.

00;07;38;14 - 00;07;43;28
Nathan
Second with resolving details, that you normally wouldn't get when you're, when you're in a city.

00;07;44;01 - 00;07;51;27
Roo
So even like doing like planetary work then would be incredible compared to like a dark sky location without great seeing then.

00;07;51;27 - 00;08;14;24
Nathan
Yeah. Planetary would just would just be phenomenal. It's really good coming up in the Milky Way season. A lot of, a lot of Milky Way photography is done, you know, with an SCP or an RC scope and, really popular right now to pair it with the five, eight five sensor that's got those really small pixels. And so, yeah, when you're in the city, the small pixels don't help you out very much when you're, you know, 2 or 3 arcseconds, which is pretty normal, actually.

00;08;14;26 - 00;08;31;04
Nathan
You know, where I live, I live in southern Utah, in central Utah right now, and we have really dark skies where I live. But I got two mountain ranges to the east and the west of me. And so getting, getting, getting seeing below two arcseconds is, is pretty difficult to do.

00;08;31;04 - 00;08;39;17
Roo
Really, even though you're in an area that's really dark, it's that much of a difference to where you're seeing two and three arcseconds seeing.

00;08;39;20 - 00;09;00;09
Nathan
Yeah. I mean, it's dark here. And you know, I'm, I'm high on my house. That's about 60 500ft elevation. Wow. But the mountains just mess things up when the wind comes off of, or especially at night when it cools down and the cold air sinks, you get cold air that sits on top of those mountains that kind of floods its way down into the valley, and it just makes the air really turbulent.

00;09;00;09 - 00;09;14;04
Nathan
And so it's hard to get below two second where I'm at. So seeing is hard. It's a really difficult one to do. And you have to you have to, do some, some pretty intense tests for it. But okay, once you find it, it's great, you know.

00;09;14;06 - 00;09;26;12
Roo
How do you do testing? Do you literally just image and see if you can get under an arch second and then see if you can do that consistently over X amount of time compared to the other place. Is that how you're doing it or.

00;09;26;14 - 00;09;49;19
Nathan
Yeah, there's a there's a device that you can purchase. It's called an SBS seeing monitor. Okay. And it uses like I'm trying to remember exactly what sensor it uses. It uses a, a QA sensor with a 100 millimeter focal length scope. Okay. And, this the the company that makes the scope has written a software that, that, that does it.

00;09;49;19 - 00;09;51;19
Nathan
And so if used one of those actually.

00;09;51;20 - 00;09;52;19
Roo
That's awesome.

00;09;52;21 - 00;10;13;20
Nathan
Yeah. Yeah. I had a friend they're pretty expensive. And that observatory will have when we open up. But I had I had a partner who had one. And so he set it up, at our location and checked for us over over a new moon cycle. And we were, you know, when it hits 11, 12, you know, 12:00 in the morning, 1:00 in the morning, that's when the scene really just turns phenomenal where we're at.

00;10;13;20 - 00;10;18;16
Nathan
And that's where we were seeing, you know, 0.8 arc seconds. It was just just great.

00;10;18;19 - 00;10;40;08
Roo
That's awesome man. And so I guess like you'll if you have one on site two, you'll be able to update seeing conditions on a nightly basis and kind of let people know when the best nights are, for imaging, even though, like, I would imagine any clear night out, there's going to be pretty darn good compared to for my side yard.

00;10;40;11 - 00;10;55;15
Roo
Here in Birtles seven eight Charlotte. But, you know, if you were somebody who was very particular and you wanted to be, you know, sure that you're getting the best possible seeing on any given night from a true dark sky location. You can do that.

00;10;55;17 - 00;11;15;09
Nathan
Yeah. We will we'll have we have, we're building a software, we call it the mission control hub, and it's it's a it's a place where. Okay, people who reserve repair, where users who have reserved a beer can go in and manage their peer. And one of the features inside of that will we'll have a link to our seeing monitor.

00;11;15;11 - 00;11;21;20
Nathan
So you'll be able to check seeing conditions, at it at any, at any time at the site.

00;11;21;22 - 00;11;47;28
Roo
That sounds fantastic. So let me back up a little bit though. So what exactly what was it that inspired you to do this? Because like, I think anybody who has been into this hobby for, you know, a few years, it's crossed their mind at some point, like, man, how cool would it be to go buy a chunk of land out west and open up a remote observatory and, you know, tell them all to go to hell just to live live on a in an RV, yada yada yada.

00;11;47;28 - 00;11;59;00
Roo
But but you're a bit unique because you, you actually live not too terribly far from a great location for it. But like, what led you down that path?

00;11;59;03 - 00;12;18;15
Nathan
Yeah. No, I I've been really fortunate. And even I mean, the worst place that I've, that I've lived is about a portal for sky. And. Wow, that was great. But right now we live, we're in a burn, a portal three zone. And, you know, I've been I've been a member of the Astro cast for a little, I think, over two years now.

00;12;18;17 - 00;12;38;08
Nathan
You're one of the originals and you have. Yeah. I've been able to connect with some of the greatest people on Earth, and as I was, as progressing through this hobby, I just. I started to realize what how fortunate I was. Yeah. And have a great deal of gratitude for that living out West. But to realizing, man, I really want to share this with with with my friends.

00;12;38;11 - 00;12;52;01
Nathan
You know, I we get on the discord chat on the on the Astro cat discord and we're talking and having fun and everyone's hanging out and I'm just like, man, I really wish that I could have a place for my friends to all get together and throw up a scope, and we could all image and work on projects together.

00;12;52;01 - 00;13;12;21
Nathan
And so I've been mulling it over for the last year or so, and finally, after talking to a couple different people, I was able to put some of the pieces together. I couldn't have done it on my own. I don't I don't have all the pieces to do it, but I've been able to bring on a partner for it that possesses a lot of the skills that I don't have, and the two of us together are able to make it work.

00;13;12;23 - 00;13;33;24
Roo
That's awesome man. Not not no one can do it all themselves, especially, in this hobby. So I think having the right partner is absolutely key, because you can complement each other and, you know, each of you can be good at particular things and, you know, just it's good to have somebody to bounce stuff off of, especially when you're talking about something as big as this.

00;13;33;24 - 00;13;34;19
Roo
Right.

00;13;34;21 - 00;13;53;04
Nathan
Yeah. Oh for sure. Yeah. I've, I've, I have a pretty extensive background in astrophotography and I'm a contractor by by trade. And Mike my partner is a software. He's a, he's a software engineer and he's a network engineer. He's been doing software and network stuff forever and that and that's where I'm not good at. You know, I.

00;13;53;06 - 00;13;54;24
Roo
I know.

00;13;54;26 - 00;14;06;04
Nathan
I've got limited knowledge there, but Mike is incredible. He's the one who's developing the mission control software. He's been working, building the networks and connecting the VPNs, and.

00;14;06;06 - 00;14;06;27
Roo
That's awesome.

00;14;06;27 - 00;14;15;06
Nathan
Building our power cycle station. You know, he's been putting all that fun stuff together. And so we we make a good team together. We both are two halves of the puzzle.

00;14;15;09 - 00;14;56;17
Roo
That's awesome man. It's. It sounds like you can be the guy who's the, the kind of on site guy you could probably being a contractor, I'm sure, like, you can do building repairs and, you know, things of that nature. And then he can handle the networking side software, etc.. And you really do need both halves of that for a venture like this, because, you know, I've thought about it and there is a lot of work that goes in to opening up, a remote observatory and what really kind of surprised me is that you guys are able to do it at the, the prices that that you've been able to do because

00;14;56;20 - 00;14;59;26
Roo
for what is it that you're charging for like a, a C star.

00;14;59;29 - 00;15;18;24
Nathan
Or C stars are $75 right now for founding members. Once those fill, the C star will go to $100 a month. But we've got a little discount right now for founding members. But our most popular peer is actually our small peer, and it's $149 a month, and that's got a 32 or 30. Oh, I don't have it on me.

00;15;19;00 - 00;15;22;12
Nathan
I think it's 36 inch radius and so perfect for small. I think you.

00;15;22;12 - 00;15;30;21
Roo
Said it was 36. Yeah. It's it's it'll fit your red cats and my Isca 55 and all those kind of scopes. Right.

00;15;30;23 - 00;15;31;20
Nathan
Yeah.

00;15;31;23 - 00;15;51;13
Roo
So I actually looked the other day, because when we first talked, I remember specifically saying that there were seven left, and now I looked in, there's four. So if you're hearing this and you do want to be one of the founding members, you can absolutely do that still. And I've got, a partnership set up with Astro Peak.

00;15;51;13 - 00;16;12;07
Roo
So if you want to join the Patreon for the Astro cast, obviously you'll be able to talk with Nathan in me and the discord. And besides us, we have, like, you know, dozens of other people in there who are, well, way smarter than I am. I'll just put it that way to be polite. But we've got a lot of experts and just a lot of awesome people.

00;16;12;07 - 00;16;42;25
Roo
Really a really cool crowd, to talk with, and we, you know, we do some pretty cool stuff together. We've gotten up a few times. I know you've met with Eric, one of our long term members. And then obviously, I did the first light thing back in August, and we've got more planned in the future. So if you want to join up, you can go to Patreon.com forward, slash the Astro cast, and you'll actually get a, discount code that you can use for your peer, and it will essentially pay for your discord membership.

00;16;42;25 - 00;17;07;16
Roo
So you're getting it at a discounted rate, getting access to the, you know, entire Astro Cash community and then getting obviously access to sub arc second mortal Ones guys, which is really hard to be. You know, it's still blowing my mind that you live at a higher elevation in a portal one, but by going down 1000ft from where you are, you were able to get that much better seeing conditions.

00;17;07;16 - 00;17;11;16
Roo
That's crazy. That really does show you that the environment makes all the difference, right?

00;17;11;19 - 00;17;17;23
Nathan
Yeah. The topography of the land can make a huge difference in seeing conditions. That's crazy.

00;17;17;25 - 00;17;22;21
Roo
How long did it take you guys to find the, the finals? So I would imagine you looked at it quite a few places right?

00;17;22;24 - 00;17;40;17
Nathan
Yeah. It took us a couple of months. We, you know, you only have about 15 days or so, even less than that. You have about ten days each month where you can actually test sky quality check. Yeah. How dark the sky is and and check scene conditions and and do things like that. So it's. Yeah it was a lot man.

00;17;40;17 - 00;17;59;10
Nathan
We we were driving my wife was probably so frustrated because I would spend all day for all day Friday, all day Saturday driving in and camping out and and testing things with Mike and Mike and I. Mike and I were homeless for for a while as we drove around the state. Track is out.

00;17;59;12 - 00;18;14;11
Roo
You know, it's it's funny. I think I've got a big drive in front of me because you're planning to open if everything goes as planned. And obviously something had come up that delays it a little bit. But all things being equal, if everything goes perfectly, you're. When are you hoping to open up?

00;18;14;14 - 00;18;36;02
Nathan
Yeah, we're hoping to open up this spring. We're shooting for probably a may opening and everything's going good so far. Where knock on wood things are progressing. I've, I've been working this this week. I've been heavily working with, an engineer out of Ohio that's helping us put together the, the, the track system. The track system is quite complicated on a big journey.

00;18;36;03 - 00;18;42;23
Nathan
It's a little bit different from from from, like a backyard observatory. And so it's been quite, because it's so much.

00;18;42;23 - 00;18;43;24
Roo
Bigger, I'm guessing.

00;18;44;01 - 00;19;08;11
Nathan
Yeah, it's bigger. And there's a lot more safety features when you're when you're doing a reserve retreat in your backyard, you can usually just put a small wheel on a, you know, a small caster wheel on a V groove and, and some locks on the end and run with it. And it works great for, for backyard applications. But we're talking about a 25 by 40ft building that has to roll 100ft and come back every night.

00;19;08;13 - 00;19;18;16
Nathan
The engineering was quite complex. I did not expect it would. I didn't expect it would be this hard. There's not a lot of there's not a lot of engineers that have that type of building sitting in their portfolio.

00;19;18;19 - 00;19;20;18
Roo
So that makes sense.

00;19;20;18 - 00;19;31;08
Nathan
That's what we've been working on the last week. And we made some huge headwinds today. I think we've got that all but finalized at this point. So it's been great. Yeah. So we're shooting for a late a late spring opening.

00;19;31;10 - 00;19;50;03
Roo
That's so cool, man. You make it just in time for Milky Way season before it really starts settling in. I know you could get like really early in April, but like, you know, the Milky Way's not really coming out till late May, you know what I mean? You can get it straight up and down the meridian if you if you get started, you know, in June.

00;19;50;06 - 00;19;51;23
Roo
So that's that's perfect timing.

00;19;51;28 - 00;19;58;06
Nathan
Yeah. That's the goal. I told Mike we've got to be open by by a milky way season. We can't let that slip by.

00;19;58;08 - 00;20;22;18
Roo
That gives me time to. Because I was talking to, another, member of the Patreon, and we were talking about, getting our scopes set up in time. And since we have these few months, I actually was thinking about it and I was like, well, I actually need a couple of things that I don't have right now on my rig because I don't really need them because I am physically here.

00;20;22;18 - 00;20;47;25
Roo
I can change out the filters. Even though I plan on still shooting one shot color out there. I'm sticking to my 2600 MK Pro, at least for the time being. Maybe at some point I'll go mono, but for now I'm going to be very happy. Happy having a 2600 MK Pro on my Astro Graph out there, but it still would be great to have a filter wheel because, you know, I might want to do, you know, dual narrowband.

00;20;47;25 - 00;21;07;06
Roo
Sometimes, even though I'm in portal one skies, why not do narrowband? I thought I could have a, dark frame on the filter wheel so I could take new darks whenever I want without having to, you know, bug anyone. And then a uvi cut filter would be nice for getting really good pretty stars. So there's a few little things with that.

00;21;07;06 - 00;21;23;22
Roo
And then the other thing that I thought about, and maybe you know, I want to pick your brain about this too, because I had an idea and I wanted to run it by you. But what about flats? Because I know, like, deep sky dad is, somebody who makes really great flat taking devices for a lack of better words.

00;21;23;22 - 00;21;39;13
Roo
The the the foot flaps, you know, you can automate them to flip up on your scope so you can take, flats whenever you want. But but let me ask you this. Are you going to suggest sky flats or, like, how are you thinking about flats at the observatory as things stand right now, like what is your plan?

00;21;39;15 - 00;21;40;09
Roo
Yeah.

00;21;40;12 - 00;22;04;17
Nathan
Personally, ru, I'm a big Sky flats guy. I okay, I know that there's people have very strong opinions on that. Either way, and I, I really don't care, but I have I think I think a lot of the problems with Sky flats comes when you don't live in a very clear area and you wake up in the morning and there's clouds and then you're bogged because you can't take your flats, and then you're worried that dust is going to settle and things are going to change and your flats aren't going to work, you know?

00;22;04;17 - 00;22;25;01
Nathan
But when you're in, we we image, a little over 70% of the nights. And so mornings are perfectly clear, perfectly clear blue skies. You're not going to have a problem taking sky flats, but that being said, a lot of people will do flat panels from, I wouldn't say Pegasus makes a flat panel wander, Astro makes a flat panel.

00;22;25;03 - 00;22;25;28
Nathan
And so don't.

00;22;25;28 - 00;22;51;25
Roo
Think you don't think a flat panel is like an unnecessary addition, though, necessarily, because, like, honestly, man, if you take good flats with sky flats, I'm okay with that. You know, because I, I'd rather save the two $300 that I would spend on that and put it towards something else. If Sky flats are ample, especially now that I've got a 2600 because what the two nine, four you had to take like two plus second flats in order for them to come out decent.

00;22;51;25 - 00;23;06;13
Roo
And what always happened was the, the brightness of the sky would change too much if I wanted to take 30 flats that were two seconds each, you know, by the time it was done taking them all the the luminosity would be completely different, you know what I mean?

00;23;06;13 - 00;23;18;23
Nathan
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That that the 294 sensor is, is a little bit I would say that if you're sending the 294 sensor then yeah probably send a flat panel. But yeah 2685.

00;23;18;29 - 00;23;54;15
Roo
You'll probably be fine with that. All right. Cool. That's that's good to know. I think I'll probably just stick with the filter wheel then if that's the case, because I'm perfectly fine taking Sky flats. I mean, if it works fine, then I'm good with it. So now what I was thinking though, is like, why hasn't? And I probably just answered my own question, but wouldn't it be something if I, like a remote observatory had kind of like a flat white paint on the ceiling and you had like, flat stay like once a month on full moon and you just like, wrote down on the schedule, the, the, the roof's going to be closed

00;23;54;15 - 00;24;09;10
Roo
at this time. You can take flats between this hour in this hour of the day. Like, I'm surprised no one's done that yet. Would it be hard to get an evenly lit white light source across the entire ceiling? Would that be the challenge there, do you think? Yeah.

00;24;09;10 - 00;24;27;19
Nathan
That's interesting. I've actually there's there's a couple a couple remote observatories that do have flat panels. They're usually a lot smaller and so when you're just running a row of like two telescopes and you and every telescope has access to a wall, then I've seen the flat panels hanging from the wall, and you can just, you know, slow your scope over to the flat panel.

00;24;27;19 - 00;24;35;14
Roo
Yeah. Yeah, I guess that would work. I guess everybody, multiple people could point at one flat panel. That's a good point. I didn't think about that. If you flew over there.

00;24;35;17 - 00;24;40;28
Nathan
Yeah, I'd have to look at I'd have to look into the ceiling one. If everyone could get a view of it correctly, I guess it could work, but.

00;24;41;04 - 00;24;49;16
Roo
I, I would be so cool too, if you had like, 50 scopes all pointed at one flat panel, that would be great.

00;24;49;17 - 00;24;58;19
Nathan
Yeah. Oh, I will tell you. I will tell you. You're using, and I'm going to I should stay away from controversial statements, but.

00;24;58;20 - 00;24;59;07
Roo
Okay. Okay.

00;24;59;09 - 00;25;26;21
Nathan
I but but when you're using a filter wheel, you don't need to take flats every session you can take. You can take flats and your flats will work. Your flats will work for months because your flats are really designed to take dust motes off your sensor or your filter. I think there's a common misconception that that dust particles on your lens or on your objective mirrors, cause issues, and they really don't, you know, you hear people especially they have you're right.

00;25;26;23 - 00;25;35;29
Nathan
There are Arcs or or notes don't, don't ever clean. Like, if you were to look at my RTK scope right now, the mirror looks absolutely disgusting and it produces beautiful images.

00;25;35;29 - 00;25;36;17
Roo
I'm sure.

00;25;36;17 - 00;25;55;22
Nathan
You know, it just doesn't it doesn't have the effect that that that you would think it does. And so I'm big too. And don't don't clean your glass. Don't clean your mirrors. There's no no reason to it's not going to affect your images. So you really could you really could take flats. You know, I mean your entire imaging train is completely closed.

00;25;55;22 - 00;26;02;14
Nathan
And so I would take flats. I, IRA, use a lot of the same flats and and don't do that I don't.

00;26;02;14 - 00;26;25;05
Roo
I don't even have like a permanent I have like honestly like if I'm not rotating my, my actual, you know glass which was rare anyway when I, when I was doing anyway. Yeah I've done the exact same thing moving my scope indoors and outdoors and never had troubles. So like if you're on a stationary set up with a filter wheel, I can't imagine having to retake them frequently.

00;26;25;05 - 00;26;30;09
Roo
I mean, I would, I would bet like once a month would probably be reasonable.

00;26;30;12 - 00;26;33;20
Nathan
Yeah, at at least I'm sure I'm sure you could go longer.

00;26;33;22 - 00;26;44;29
Roo
Yeah. That's fair. So do you have any, outreach plans, like with the community, or are you planning on doing any kind of events where you can, you know, get people together for star parties and the like?

00;26;44;29 - 00;27;14;03
Nathan
Yeah, definitely. We we are we are going to make a lot of connections. We we're actually working with a couple of the local clubs right now in the area. And so we've got some things planned there. We, I hope I mean, it probably won't happen in the next couple of months, but maybe toward the end of the year to have a nice visual scope there where if people wanted to come and do visual astrophotography or visual visual work, you know, I, I love I love visual astronomy.

00;27;14;03 - 00;27;32;04
Nathan
Love it, love it, love it. And I would love to be able to have pads in place where people could come and do do that with us. So yeah, we've we've got quite a bit of about reached out plan. I know you guys actually I know a lot almost. Oh geez. I would say a half or so of the people who have reserved piers are making plans to come out and visit in person.

00;27;32;04 - 00;27;36;02
Nathan
And so I can imagine going to have star parties pretty frequently in the evenings.

00;27;36;07 - 00;27;57;02
Roo
Oh, man. Dude, I'll tell you right now, like, I'm not like just throwing stuff out there, but like, if everything works out and, you know, things go as planned for you and, you know, as I'm sure they will, because it certainly seems like you're heading in the right direction. We might have to do an astro gas meetup out there one day.

00;27;57;02 - 00;27;58;14
Roo
That would be really cool, wouldn't it?

00;27;58;14 - 00;28;00;12
Nathan
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

00;28;00;15 - 00;28;27;19
Roo
Oh, man, I just, I get so excited because I'm thinking about, late summer this year. I'm thinking about having the North American meet up. I've got, like, a couple of places in mind. So we'll have to talk more about that in the future. But I definitely recommend, like, getting good with the locals, man. Especially like, if there's any, universities in the area, you definitely want to get in good with them because that's if you want to get like, a big visual scope, man.

00;28;27;21 - 00;28;47;00
Roo
You get in good with, you know, universities and, you know, the local star clubs and what have you. And before long, somebody will donate a 24 inch, just to go and sit out on your pad, you know what I mean? And that's how it happened at the Charlotte club. You know, over time, more people joined. And people who are passionate about astronomy got involved.

00;28;47;03 - 00;28;52;05
Roo
And then people start donating things because they want the public to be able to go out and use them. You know.

00;28;52;07 - 00;28;55;09
Nathan
Wouldn't, wouldn't a 24 inch star be so cool?

00;28;55;12 - 00;29;19;19
Roo
It really is. I found the, picture of me looking through the 24 inch DOB, that Gail Rigsby built. And I'm literally up on a staircase looking through the eyepiece, and we were. We. I remember that day. It was still daylight out. We were looking at Venus, and we could see the phase because, you know, Venus phases like the moon and Mars and,

00;29;19;21 - 00;29;39;18
Roo
Wait, does Mars phase? I'm tripping. Venus phases like the moon. That's what I meant to say. Anyway, it was absolutely beautiful. 24 inch nudes, man. Especially with sub arc seeing. That's something you should, definitely hope for. It'll. It'll happen one day. Just wish it into existence.

00;29;39;20 - 00;29;58;11
Nathan
Every time I, I ru, there's nothing I hate more than the planet Venus. And you're about to figure out you're about to figure out how awful Venus is when you have, scope under portal one skies, that that stupid planet is brighter than the moon when it's when it's fully illuminated. It's just what.

00;29;58;14 - 00;30;16;29
Roo
It. You know, it's funny that you said that they had to stop down the scope. When we pointed it at it, they put they had a cardboard cutout stop down ring that they put on the front of the giant 24 inch newt because it was just so bright. Yeah, I guess so. It tends to. Yeah.

00;30;17;01 - 00;30;44;29
Nathan
But, I learned I learned that lesson good. About a year ago, I took a dark sky trip, actually, out to the to the Great Basin area, and it was about. It was about. Oh, it's probably like early or late fall, early winter. And I was so excited because I wanted to go, do I want to go do some of the dark Nebula stuff and the and the like, the Perseus Stars region and got out there, got all set up and.

00;30;44;29 - 00;31;01;22
Nathan
Yep, you know, rises and you know, you know that area, you know, rises in the east and stuff. And, and Venus was right there and I couldn't get anything. It was just washing out all of my images and stuff. And you know, you know, that's not a big problem when you're under portal seven skies, you don't think twice about Venus.

00;31;01;22 - 00;31;10;02
Nathan
But when you get to a dark sky and and you're trying to shoot some dark nebula and Venus pops up, you're just like, well, that's worthless. It's everything.

00;31;10;02 - 00;31;17;03
Roo
Inside you. You're right. I hadn't even considered it because it's like having a little full moon there, isn't it?

00;31;17;05 - 00;31;26;24
Nathan
It is, it is. It's awful. But, you know, Venus is good. I'm not going to complain about her, but, you could be frustrated sometimes that.

00;31;26;26 - 00;31;35;14
Roo
You know, you're, like, getting into next level astrophotography when instead of complaining about the full moon, you're complaining about the full Venus.

00;31;35;16 - 00;31;45;03
Nathan
I damn, I can't wait to see it one night. You're going to be imaging. You're going to be trying that that image, the dark nebula in that region, and you're going to call me and say, what's going on? It's like, why.

00;31;45;03 - 00;31;45;16
Roo
Are images.

00;31;45;16 - 00;31;50;24
Nathan
So washed out? I'm the same picture of Venus sitting right there coming over the horizon.

00;31;50;26 - 00;32;13;16
Roo
Oh, man, I pray for the day. Man, that sounds so wonderful. So? So me and, Parrish, who's been on the show several times now, we're planning on making a road trip out to Astro Peak, so we we so, you know, full disclosure, we had originally planned, after First Light. Actually, we talked about it during first light.

00;32;13;16 - 00;32;36;09
Roo
We were going to take a road trip together to Texas, and we won't say, where. Where are we going to go in Texas? But we were going to go somewhere in Texas and drop off a couple telescopes. But we, obviously found out about what you were doing, and Parrish already has one of his telescopes in Texas, but he wants to bring his, his big boy scope out.

00;32;36;09 - 00;32;46;23
Roo
Like. And I think it's like a 150 millimeter refractor that he has on, like, astrophysics mount. He's got a ridiculous set up. I don't know, has he told you about his rig at all?

00;32;47;00 - 00;32;48;22
Nathan
Yeah, he's got it. He's got a big boy.

00;32;48;25 - 00;33;27;23
Roo
Yeah. So yeah, he's he's going to be bringing that one. And I'm going to be bringing my little AM3 and my, Widefield refractor. But honestly, like, I think I'll be very, very happy having a small focal length wide field refractor out there because I'm already all about the wide field stuff, and this is going to be just incredible under, the type of seeing conditions have, you know, the hard thing that that I'm going to have to decide and it didn't even hit me until you said what you said a few minutes ago is that I might have to really think about whether I send the 2600 or the five, eight, five with

00;33;27;23 - 00;33;29;00
Roo
my scope, won't I?

00;33;29;02 - 00;33;51;24
Nathan
Oh, that is so difficult. I the five eight, five is my all time favorite sensor. It is so funny. Especially I actually, I think I think we have one of the same setups. I have the scar 55 and the 585 and it is just I have the little mini and the little mini cam eight on it, and it ends up giving you about a 500 millimeter focal view with the 2600 sensor.

00;33;51;27 - 00;34;06;21
Nathan
And so it it dude, it is it is just perfect. So I would that's what I would do. I would send your 2600 out and then one day save it for a little mini cam there like 800 bucks right now. And you get a full yes a Joe filter set.

00;34;06;23 - 00;34;07;15
Roo
Yeah.

00;34;07;15 - 00;34;26;01
Nathan
And you can, you can change a Redcat 51 or or an SQA 55. You can basically change it to a 500 millimeter scope, mono setup for 800 bucks. You know, it's it's incredible. So that's a hard camera. And they're both the white stuff.

00;34;26;03 - 00;34;42;04
Roo
That's a tricky one to think about. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I mean, I guess technically there's no reason I couldn't come out, you know, once a year. And swap out cameras if I really wanted to. It would just be like, what time of year do I want to go extra wide, and where do I want to go?

00;34;42;04 - 00;34;44;10
Roo
More narrow. Right?

00;34;44;13 - 00;34;44;23
Nathan
Yeah.

00;34;45;00 - 00;34;45;29
Roo
Oh, for sure, we'll.

00;34;45;29 - 00;35;03;23
Nathan
Have, you know, as part of as part of that mission control hub, we'll have a place for so there's actually quite a few individuals who are sending out to two cameras, and then when they want to switch it out, they just have to go to the hang on a second, just a morning ticket and was and we'll switch out their cameras for them.

00;35;03;23 - 00;35;17;20
Nathan
So you will be. So that'll always be an option to a couple. You know we have a couple individuals who are sending Rosses to. And so those you can you can't use a filter well with the Raza. And so you know, you'll be able to go on quickly schedule those support tickets and then and then switch thing around.

00;35;17;21 - 00;35;21;19
Nathan
But I would probably start with the 2600. I would start with the wide field stuff. Because what.

00;35;21;23 - 00;35;22;19
Roo
You can see first.

00;35;22;21 - 00;35;27;07
Nathan
Under under dark skies, wide field, you know. Yep. All right. Can you hear me? Good.

00;35;27;07 - 00;35;33;07
Roo
Yeah, I can hear you, man. What were you saying? You said you were saying, about the mission control software.

00;35;33;09 - 00;35;50;23
Nathan
Yeah, I was just basically saying that, you know, there's quite a few users who will send out both their cameras, and then you can go on to the mission control hub, and there will be a place where you can actually request a support ticket, and then go in there and just have, have you have your camera switched out or I've got a couple guys, a couple buddies who are send in big races.

00;35;50;25 - 00;36;04;03
Nathan
And so with a big asset, you can't you can't use a filter. Well, right, because they're coming off to the front of it. And so they have to just send their filter sets. And then we just go in and swap them out for them as, as as they see fit. But I would definitely, probably send the wide field stuff first.

00;36;04;03 - 00;36;11;24
Nathan
There is there's probably two years worth of things you could capture with the 2600 and A and a Sky 55 dude.

00;36;11;26 - 00;36;16;04
Roo
Ross with what? Like, what size races are we talking?

00;36;16;06 - 00;36;32;17
Nathan
Big ones that I've seen. I've got I think I've got a, an 11 inch for sure. And then there's, there's a couple of big casts, a big, some big casts of grains that are coming. And I've got a 16 inch one that's coming. So.

00;36;32;20 - 00;36;33;06
Roo
Oh, man.

00;36;33;10 - 00;36;34;14
Nathan
I'm something big, boys.

00;36;34;19 - 00;36;57;06
Roo
So my secret dream scope is a giant race. And, like, I know, I know, you can buy an edge HD and get a fast start at the after, and. Yeah, but I just love races, man. I don't know what it is about. It's just something about that, you know, f what it's like f 1.8 out of the box with some of them right?

00;36;57;08 - 00;36;58;27
Nathan
Yeah. It's a drug. Yeah.

00;36;58;27 - 00;37;07;03
Roo
It's just like just sucking in photons. And though you do got to manually swap filters, you can do a filter draw on them. Can't you.

00;37;07;06 - 00;37;24;09
Nathan
Correct. Yeah. You can do a filter draw. It's a little bit harder on the, the eight inch. It can definitely still be done. Yeah. But the eight inch only has I want to say has like 29 or 29mm a backpack spacing. Wow. So that's super tight setup. Yeah. Yeah.

00;37;24;11 - 00;37;41;15
Roo
Well that's something to keep in mind if you're thinking about getting a race. Make sure that, you know, your whole imaging train will fit within those very small requirements. I don't think I got I got to worry about that quite yet, but maybe in a couple of years, I think. I think right now I'm pretty saturated with, with gear.

00;37;41;20 - 00;38;04;17
Roo
And honestly, that's, that's one of the reasons why I might end up sending out two cameras, because earlier today I was looking and I got one sitting on a shelf for about a month. You know, like the reality is when you're when you're someone like me who, you know, works full time and lives in the city like I image as much as I can, and I get out under every clear sky night that I have available.

00;38;04;17 - 00;38;31;00
Roo
But like, do I realistically on a Tuesday night, set up three scopes in my backyard like, no, I don't like, I'll have a pier and I will put my, if I know it's going to be clear for the next week. You know, obviously I'll put my refractor on and cover it up and do it every night. But, you know, if you're set up in a permanent remote observatory under those kind of skies, you can really add up data quickly.

00;38;31;00 - 00;38;56;28
Roo
And I think that's like the huge advantage of of doing this is like I because I talked to Justin and like that's definitely his secret sauce is you will if you will is that he is able to collect a lot of data because there's just so many nights that he is able to image one after another. And if you automate it correctly, like you really don't gotta mess with it too much, like especially with Nino, the way that it, works.

00;38;57;00 - 00;39;14;12
Roo
You know, I'm still learning, and I'm glad that I've got a few months to learn it all, because, you know, I got to drive out there in May or whatever, but but, you know, if you automate things correctly, it's kind of set it and forget it. And then you just pick up your Fitz files after a 100 hours of imaging or whatever you set it to.

00;39;14;17 - 00;39;15;29
Roo
And you're good, right?

00;39;16;01 - 00;39;34;06
Nathan
Yeah. No, exactly. You're you're going to get, data overload where you'll be like, what do I do with all this? You'll get really picky. You're going to get really picky. You'll start to get picky with subframe selector. You'll start to, you know, when when you can only image once a month, you'll take whatever you can get. But when you're imaging every night, you can.

00;39;34;06 - 00;39;38;13
Nathan
You can produce some really beautiful images. You can get really, really picky with your data.

00;39;38;16 - 00;40;10;22
Roo
Oh my God, I can't wait. I'm so excited to produce some some really, really pretty images. I just, I can't wait to do my first 100 hour piece because like something I've realized after doing a couple 40 plus our projects at home. Like, realistically, I don't think I mean, don't get me wrong, I could, but there's just such a long amount of time has to pass between beginning and end to put together a 100 hour project that, oh, you know, a whole lot of work has to go into it.

00;40;10;22 - 00;40;31;05
Roo
It's not just as easy as, you know, image. Every night for a month, you know? And then you're good to go. Here, it would probably be a three month project if you're lucky to get 100 hours, but, you know, I was talking to Justin and he got like 400 plus hours or something in the last year.

00;40;31;07 - 00;40;41;10
Roo
Like, it's just an obnoxious amount of data. So, like what? What are you excited to image once everything is up and running? Do you have, like, a list of targets that you, hope to work on?

00;40;41;12 - 00;41;02;28
Nathan
Yeah, I know there's there's so much, you know, there's it's hard to think I, I really like to take advantage of, RGB stuff, you know, for Dark Nebula things. Things that, you know, things that you don't need a narrowband filter for. Yes. I really like taking advantage of that. It's really fun when you can collect really good RGB data.

00;41;03;01 - 00;41;08;21
Nathan
You can do you can do RGB plus, hey, you know, and and make some beautiful images.

00;41;08;23 - 00;41;09;09
Roo


00;41;09;28 - 00;41;14;03
Nathan
I don't know, what do you think? What what are the things are you looking forward to imaging for?

00;41;14;03 - 00;41;39;16
Roo
For me, it's definitely Dark Nebula because I whenever you started saying that earlier, it instantly took me back to Wisconsin in August of 25. And, you know, me and the boys are up there for the weekend. And I was I only had three nights there, and I said, I'm going to do one target and these skies are dark enough, or I can finally try a dark nebula.

00;41;39;18 - 00;42;04;29
Roo
And I ended up doing the Dark Shark. And I think I ended up like in total with like 14 hours worth of data on it. And it's a really good image. Like, I was very, very happy with how it came out, all things considered. And I think I did a pretty good job processing it too. But when I look at that image, the first thing I didn't center it perfectly because from where I was, it wasn't really possible with a three minute sub to truly make it out.

00;42;04;29 - 00;42;27;29
Roo
So like, I thought I was centered, but I wasn't, I, I would imagine from a portal one sky, if you it's not going to take too long to figure out, if you're centered properly and, and frame things up just the way you want, but yeah, man, like it when you get into the dark nebula. Like, if you follow any of the people on Instagram, for example, that hunt Dark Nebula.

00;42;28;02 - 00;42;35;08
Roo
Like, there are so many awesome dark nebula out there to capture. There really are. There's a it's like a whole new world.

00;42;35;11 - 00;42;53;12
Nathan
Yeah, there is, and there's a lot of areas to like. I've been working on a project recently with Barnard's. I like the Barnard's Loop area where you have like M70 eight, on the right hand side, and then you have bogeymen on the left hand side. That's when you're when you're in really light polluted skies, you can pull a lot of the, the hydrogen data out with your narrowband filter.

00;42;53;12 - 00;43;10;18
Nathan
But a lot of the dark nebula around the Boogieman Nebula is really hard to get. And so that's one of those things I love, love. Oh man, I just love a dark Nebula shot that's got that's got pieces of hydrogen flowing through it. It's just so rich, gorgeous.

00;43;10;20 - 00;43;35;14
Roo
It really is, man. It just it adds an extra depth that I don't think we get a lot of, and dark Nebula images. I know exactly what you're talking about. And, man, Barnard's loop. It you know what? Let me guess. What are the, winter conditions like out where you are? So, like, if I wanted to, shoot Orion in December, like, do you get a lot of clear nights in the winter as well?

00;43;35;17 - 00;43;56;02
Nathan
Yeah, I definitely, definitely out west. Your your hot months are going to be your spring, summer and fall. Those are going to be your prime clear. But like, even this year, it's funny you were talking about snow at the beginning of the episode. I actually saw a thing, on the news last night that said that Florida has received more snow than Salt Lake City has this year, which is wild.

00;43;56;04 - 00;43;57;00
Roo
That is why we've.

00;43;57;00 - 00;44;15;04
Nathan
Had we've had enough. Yeah, we've had an abnormally dry winter. But, I think I tell you, I've been I've been tracking it on Furyk for January. You could have imaged. And let me see here, I've got the notes here, 82% of the nights and in January.

00;44;15;04 - 00;44;16;06
Roo
Forget about.

00;44;16;09 - 00;44;21;22
Nathan
Still, still really good. It's not going to be what you'll see in the summer. But it's still going to be really, really good.

00;44;21;24 - 00;44;45;04
Roo
Oh, man, that sounds I mean, dude, like, for me, it's, I'm lucky if I get. I mean, being real, like, five good nights a month is probably, like, the best I could hope for. Like, and especially, like the way that the last couple of summers have been on the East coast. They have been so bad. Like, we might as well have not had a milky way season yet.

00;44;45;04 - 00;45;08;12
Roo
But I'm saying like there were so few nights where I was able to go down, to the Charlotte Observatory, down in South Carolina, and just see the Milky Way. So like that. That sounds absolutely incredible, considering what most of us deal with on the East Coast. I will, absolutely take it. So, let me see.

00;45;08;12 - 00;45;21;22
Roo
So, like, let me ask you this. If everything goes how you want it to, like, what's the long term vision for the observatory? Are you wanting to make this, like, if everything goes perfectly, could you see this being like, a, a full time career for you?

00;45;21;24 - 00;45;51;01
Nathan
Yeah, definitely. The goal of Astro Peak is to reduce the cost of of remote imaging, right? That's that's what we're all about. I have huge respect for Bray and star front. Yes. Bray is absolute, he revolutionized remote imaging, and I. I have absolutely insane respect for what he was able to do. And Astro Peak just wants to build on that.

00;45;51;01 - 00;46;21;09
Nathan
Absolutely. We want to take it a step, a step further by providing, more services and a better experience for, for our imagers and so we just hope that over time that we can continue to knock down the high barriers of entry into remote imaging. Yep. And make it something where, I mean, I mean, our small period at at $149 a month, I mean, my, my shop, in Salt Lake, we, we share buildings with a CrossFit.

00;46;21;15 - 00;46;35;13
Nathan
Okay. And their membership is $130 a month. Right. So being able to I wouldn't know because I'm never there. Yeah, but I see him. Yeah, I see him working out.

00;46;35;15 - 00;46;57;22
Roo
Oh, man, I love that. So yeah I mean that's very affordable, especially in today's economy man. Because like nothing nothing is cheap right now. So props to you for finding a way hopefully at scale. You know hope and I understand like take your time with it because it's obviously, you know, important to to get things right. But like man oh man that is an affordable price point to be able to hit.

00;46;57;22 - 00;47;32;08
Roo
Especially like man. Yeah, it's it's upsetting to me how bad the skies are getting in Charlotte and it's only going to get worse. You know this this problem is not getting better with light pollution. So you know, places like Utah are so, so important. And to be able to open that up to anybody, you know, who can afford a modest amount each month and honestly, like, if you're deep into astrophotography, like being you are, you've probably spent more than $150 a month on astro gear at some point in the last couple of years.

00;47;32;08 - 00;47;39;25
Roo
I know I certainly have been guilty of that, so it is going to open up like a whole new world to to so many people. So thank you for doing it, Nathan.

00;47;39;29 - 00;48;06;15
Nathan
Yeah, no. And I don't want to make 150 bucks a month sound like it's nothing because it definitely does cost something. But but the goal is this like what? When I was a traveling imager, right. To to take my expedition, and fill it up with gas and drive three hours to my dark site and spend the night and drive three hours back when, you know, that was already $100 in gas to get, you.

00;48;06;15 - 00;48;07;22
Roo
Know, you're not wrong.

00;48;07;24 - 00;48;40;00
Nathan
So now, and if there's a way that we can make this better, I don't want to steal all of Mike's thunder, too. I'm. You probably will hear from Mike a lot over the next coming months, but the mission control software that he's building, too, is just phenomenal. And the way that it gives users access to to control their power and just have an all around really easy, experience, you know, we want to simplify it as much as we can, lower the barriers of entry as much as we can, and get as many people to to be able to participate in remote imaging as possible.

00;48;40;01 - 00;48;48;02
Nathan
Because if you're a serious astrophotographer, remote imaging really does make the difference. And and and getting great, great images.

00;48;48;04 - 00;49;28;14
Roo
Yeah. You can say that again, man. And you're right, you know, especially like now if you want to do like a donut star donut situation, like when I make my dark sky trip once a year, you know, to it technically portal one skies, even though they're at, you know, sea level. So the seeing isn't great. But, you know, I probably spend upwards of $600 just on that trip, because if you figure like gas, hotels, food, you know, eating out a couple of nights on there, you know, it's it's not cheap to go on dark sky trips if that's, you know, your main source of great images throughout the year, which I would imagine

00;49;28;14 - 00;49;47;11
Roo
for most of us, it probably is, you know, and obviously if you want you can image like like I do in the side yard, you know, most nights. But like the stuff that I'm truly proud of, it always comes from the dark sky locations, because that's where I'm able to get my best data from. And that really does make a big difference.

00;49;47;11 - 00;49;51;10
Roo
It's true that there is no substitute for Dark skies.

00;49;51;14 - 00;49;57;27
Nathan
Yeah there isn't. The you know, we make a joke that the opt long L pro can only do so much.

00;49;57;29 - 00;50;17;02
Roo
Man, I was so in love with the pro. And don't get me wrong, I still I still love the pro. And it got me, So, so far. But then, like, I started getting my hands on some of the fancier, filters, and oh my goodness. Like, there's, there's a whole other world out there. So it's not just the old pro.

00;50;17;06 - 00;50;28;23
Roo
So if you haven't had a chance yet, definitely check out some of the other, filters on the market. Because they definitely will not disappoint. What what are you what what kind of filters do you like?

00;50;28;25 - 00;50;29;17
Nathan
None. Yeah.

00;50;29;17 - 00;50;36;03
Roo
I was gonna say you don't have. You don't even really got to worry. You could just shoot full broadband, can't you? Oh, man.

00;50;36;06 - 00;50;36;23
Nathan
Oh, yeah.

00;50;36;29 - 00;50;47;14
Roo
But do you do mono imaging too, I haven't I you were mentioning ha plus RGB earlier. Do you do any mono imaging or do you put a hot filter on your one shot color. How do you do that.

00;50;47;16 - 00;50;52;06
Nathan
Yeah, I do both I, I do both both mono and color imaging.

00;50;52;09 - 00;50;55;07
Roo
So okay. So just kind of depends on what the target is.

00;50;55;09 - 00;51;06;17
Nathan
Yeah. Exactly. If there's a nice there's a target that's just straight. Straight RGB then. Yeah. Just throw the throw the color camera on there and and scoop up 50 hours. You know.

00;51;06;19 - 00;51;25;11
Roo
Definitely definitely. You know I was kind of shocked at how good my stock R5 was at picking up hydrogen, like everybody said, like, oh, don't even bother. Blah blah blah. But then, you know, I went out to a reasonably dark sky with it one night with a widefield lens and just said, let's see what I can do.

00;51;25;11 - 00;51;47;18
Roo
And I threw it on the, the move, shoot, move. And got about want to say like 132nd subs, and I'll be damned if I couldn't see the the entirety of Barnard's Loop. And the rosette was clearly visible and I even got the which had nebula in that shot. And, you know, it's it's amazing what, you know, just a regular RGB camera can do under dark skies, you know.

00;51;47;20 - 00;51;50;26
Nathan
Oh, it's it's incredible. Dark skies are just. Yeah, there's just.

00;51;50;26 - 00;51;53;07
Roo
The best for me if you.

00;51;53;07 - 00;51;55;16
Nathan
Haven't. It's cool, man. It's good. Oh go ahead.

00;51;55;22 - 00;51;56;21
Roo
No no no. You got.

00;51;56;24 - 00;52;27;10
Nathan
No I was just saying it's just I don't know, man. You know, one of the things to that, that we really are pushing hard with Astro Peak is, is trying to preserve our dark skies, you know, partnering with, with organizations like dark Sky international. I'm, I'm constantly wherever I live, I, I love going into to, city council meetings and making sure that we have dark, dark sky ordinances because it's just, I don't know, it's being under dark skies and just laying there.

00;52;27;13 - 00;52;40;15
Nathan
It's I'm I'm a fairly religious individual and I, I think one of the hard things that we're experiencing right now, living in the 21st century is just the lack of purpose. Yeah. You know.

00;52;40;16 - 00;52;40;29
Roo
Yeah.

00;52;41;03 - 00;53;03;00
Nathan
And it can become really it can become really easy to just to, to get that way where it's hard to find purpose and meaning in life and sitting under the sky, stars in a bottle, one area and looking up and seeing. I mean, you can see the other day when I was out there and I was, I was laying in my zero gravity chair, which, by the way, thank you for the recommendation.

00;53;03;05 - 00;53;03;16
Nathan
That man.

00;53;03;16 - 00;53;20;22
Roo
I love your gravity chairs are the best. They really are the best. So that's a oh, man, talk about a deep cut. I talked about, zero gravity chairs before the very first, dark sky trip that I talked about on on the astro gas. So. So I'm glad to hear you're a fan as well, but got going on.

00;53;20;24 - 00;53;38;16
Nathan
Yeah, you you got you got me hooked on that. But no, you're you're laying there and you look up and you see the Andromeda galaxy, right? And it's just towering above your head. It, it I, I would hope for everybody I assume it does because if you're, if you like astrophotography, there's something that gets you out there. Right.

00;53;38;16 - 00;54;02;15
Nathan
Or something that, that, that takes you back to it. I would hope that that people and I and I don't might mean to sound cheesy or anything, but I hope people find purpose in life and I hope they find value. And I hope that Mark recently wrote a poem that that he shared. He shared this poem in the in the discord group when he was in the I think it was in the Atacama when he wrote it, and I can relate to that.

00;54;02;15 - 00;54;09;18
Nathan
If you if you want a spiritual experience, whether you're a religious or not, grab a pen and a paper and go lay under some dark skies and right.

00;54;09;21 - 00;54;11;06
Roo
Man, you can say that.

00;54;11;06 - 00;54;31;26
Nathan
Because it just is. It just is. There's so much to be grateful for. There's so much good in the world. And we we just complicate things as, as a people. We're we're so high strung and we're so we're so rude to each other for no reason. You know, I'm I need to get off my soapbox here, but you're there's more to tography than just looking at the stars.

00;54;31;28 - 00;54;46;18
Roo
Yes. You are, absolutely, absolutely right about that. Matter of fact, tell you what I was. I was pulling it up. I want to read Mark's poem real quick, if you're okay with that. Do you mind if I read? Oh, heck.

00;54;46;18 - 00;54;49;09
Nathan
Yeah. No. I'm so glad you did. This is.

00;54;49;09 - 00;54;49;27
Roo
Literally.

00;54;50;03 - 00;54;56;07
Nathan
I was thinking when I was driving home today, I was like, I need to have that poem. So I'm so glad you have it. Read it. It's phenomenal.

00;54;56;10 - 00;55;35;26
Roo
All right. So this is, credit to Mark Lindley, very good friend of mine and long time, supporter of the show. So he wrote this under the Atacama Desert, obviously probably the most famous and best dark skies that we still have remaining in the world. So 10 million dots of light in the sky, 10 million fires of life in your, 10 million balls of burning gas, infinite tons of atom mass, some lights that came and went already from stars that burn to bright and steady.

00;55;35;29 - 00;56;02;24
Roo
Have you seen these gleaming specks before? These sparkling gems eyes so adored stars that couldn't help but be a glow for us to see. Have you fled away from the city lights. To see these gorgeous celestial sights? Do you ever take the time to see what lies beyond astronomy? Not cameras, lenses, mounts or scopes, but twinkling beacons that give me hope.

00;56;02;26 - 00;56;29;28
Roo
The hope that there's still more to see, more to know, more celestial glee, tricky targets to track and learn. Deep space objects that make me yearn for darker skies where we can see 10 million stars plus maybe three will lay beneath their gentle glow. Then build a better world below. A world of love with fewer tears. A world of joy that comforts, fears.

00;56;30;00 - 00;56;44;25
Roo
A world that takes the time to see 10 million stars with you and me.

00;56;44;28 - 00;57;08;29
Roo
Well said Mark. I really couldn't have said it better myself. And, you know, Nathan, it's it's funny that you mention that, man. The first time, and I believe I said this on the show, but like, the first time that I ever saw the Milky Way with my own two eyes, like, truly saw it more than just like a smudge in the night sky, but like, saw it under Bordeaux one skies.

00;57;09;02 - 00;57;31;15
Roo
It it was a religious experience to be a man. It was really spiritual. Seeing that and feeling the the width of the universe and like, you know, I, I am a firm believer that we've barely scratched the surface of what we think we know as humans. We don't have to get too deep into that regard yet.

00;57;31;18 - 00;57;53;29
Roo
But it does move you in a much deeper way. And if we want to be able to continue to share that with our kids and our kids, kids and future generations to come, it's so important that we protect the dark skies that we have left. So thanks for playing a part in that, man. Even if it's a small part, it's huge.

00;57;53;29 - 00;58;16;12
Roo
Because, you know, if everybody did something to try to make a difference, whether it was install, you know, motion activated light or talk to your neighbors about their unshielded lights on the front porch. Or, you know, maybe if you're like me, the guy who lives in the next town over literally just shines four spotlights up into the night sky every night.

00;58;16;12 - 00;58;23;10
Roo
He's such an idiot. I don't know why he does it. Please stop doing that, guy. But. But it's important.

00;58;23;10 - 00;58;25;10
Nathan
To send him a mailer to your podcast.

00;58;25;13 - 00;58;29;05
Roo
Oh, man, that guy's the worst.

00;58;29;08 - 00;58;32;22
Roo
But thanks for doing it, Nathan. It means a lot, man.

00;58;32;25 - 00;58;36;06
Nathan
No, it's. You're you're a birder, right, Roo?

00;58;36;08 - 00;58;38;05
Roo
Yes. Oh, yeah. Big time.

00;58;38;08 - 00;58;42;25
Nathan
And what does what has light pollution. What impact is it had on birds.

00;58;43;00 - 00;59;12;26
Roo
Don't don't even I mean, we, it's it's absolutely terrible what happens to birds because of light pollution. It would if it would bring you to tears. If you knew the kinds of bad things birds, like entire flocks of birds, can get stuck flying in circles above cities that are so bright because they no longer can follow the stars and the Milky Way to get where they're trying to go.

00;59;12;28 - 00;59;39;25
Roo
And they've literally fallen out of the sky from exhaustion and then died when they made impact with the ground because of light pollution. Like there is no need for that to happen. You know, it's it's the only form of pollution that is instantly and entirely reversible if we just choose to do it. And the only reason we don't is because we hold on to this caveman fear that, like, I get it.

00;59;39;25 - 01;00;03;00
Roo
Like it's genetically inside of us to to fear the dark and fear what you can't see. But like to me, if you're leaving your porch lights on all night, all you're doing is making it easier for anybody who would want to do something bad to see their way. So like install motion activated lights. At least that way you might spook them off because they think, you know.

01;00;03;07 - 01;00;22;16
Roo
And I'm saying this I know everybody who's listening to this show probably does have an issue with that, but I just wish we could have that conversation with more people, you know? So have that conversation if you haven't, because it can make a difference. And, and birds, man, it's just the beginning. I mean, it goes all the way down to the the lowly dung beetle.

01;00;22;16 - 01;00;32;26
Roo
Dung beetles follow the core of the Milky Way to find their way home. I mean, you can collapse an entire ecosystem. It's it's crazy how important that is.

01;00;32;26 - 01;00;56;03
Nathan
Yeah, and I'm gonna argue the point. You know, you talked about the birds flying in circles and not knowing where to go, and then eventually just falling down and dropping from exhaustion. I'm going to argue that that exact same thing is happening to humanity right now. And we're we're we're strung out. We're you know, we have you know, we have record levels of anxiety, record levels of depression.

01;00;56;03 - 01;01;15;26
Nathan
Yep. And I know that there's a myriad of, of of causes that I'm not pointing are not trying to say that this is the one end all be all. Yeah. But I can promise you that if you want to feel a little bit better tomorrow, go lay under the stars and look up at the night sky. And it won't solve all your problems.

01;01;15;26 - 01;01;35;26
Nathan
But I can guarantee you that you'll have a little bit more sense of your purpose, a little bit more sense of your worth, which is great. And you'll be a little bit more at peace. And so, I hope, God, I hope that Astrup can continue to grow and have more of an influence in that, in that sphere, so that we can keep keep the skies dark, because it's not just the birds that it's hurting.

01;01;35;29 - 01;02;10;11
Roo
Man. You can very, very, very well said. And they it's it is exhausting being alive in 2026 for so many of us. I said it today. I said it today to my wife. I just said, all I want to do is do an honest day's work and make a living. Is that so much to ask? But like for so many of us, like that's just not possible anymore because the world is just like, it's just sucking it out of us.

01;02;10;11 - 01;02;36;09
Roo
And I end up in spots where I crave dark skies. Because once you have that and you've you've been there and seen it and know, like what it does to your blood pressure and like it, it's for me anyway. I can't speak for other people, but like for me, if I can get out to a dark sky site for a few nights once a year, hopefully more than once a year.

01;02;36;09 - 01;02;51;17
Roo
But like, realistically, even if it's just once a year, like it's just, oh man, it helps me reset, it helps me refocus and just like really kind of not worry so much about the little things and be able to focus on, the bigger stuff, you know?

01;02;51;18 - 01;03;09;17
Nathan
Yeah, you crave it because your soul craves connection to the universe that gave it life. And you can you can witness that under under dark skies. You can witness in a lot of areas, too. But Dark Skies is one of those areas where you can really, you know, lay on that zero gravity chair and look at, look up at an at Andromeda staring back.

01;03;09;18 - 01;03;11;27
Nathan
Yeah. And and crave that connection.

01;03;11;27 - 01;03;12;07
Roo
To the.

01;03;12;07 - 01;03;14;15
Nathan
Universe that you come from that you come from.

01;03;14;17 - 01;03;22;08
Roo
Absolutely. Well, well, well, said, my friend. Have you ever seen the North American Nebula from a dark sky site?

01;03;22;13 - 01;03;37;24
Nathan
Yeah, yeah, I have, I, I'm starting to get my. I've only been big into astrophotography and so I've, I've tried to make the transition the last year or so into more visual stuff. And so it's hard though. You get out to a dark sky and you want to get all your equipment said, oh yeah, for sure. And and so it has.

01;03;37;24 - 01;03;38;10
Roo
Solutely.

01;03;38;15 - 01;03;42;17
Nathan
It's hard to just take a breath to lay in the chair and

01;03;42;20 - 01;04;04;23
Roo
Oh, it's so nice though, like, I, I feel like that whole Cygnus region and I know I'm not saying like that. You can see like the straight up outline of it. I don't know, maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but just that whole region, when it gets to the zenith and it's like right down the meridian, you can it just pops under bottle and it's just like, man, that's special.

01;04;04;23 - 01;04;27;17
Roo
And then you look in, where is it all sitting? It's sitting in sickness. And what is sickness? Sickness is the swan, which is the bird which is circling the building like it all. Just man it all comes back. So, get get out under the dark skies. If you haven't recently, I know Galaxy season is coming up, but you've got time to plan warm days are going to be here before you know it.

01;04;27;17 - 01;04;46;20
Roo
Within the next 90 days it'll be warm again. And you know, as early as April, which is less than two months away now, you can start waking up early if you want and seeing ro and, you know, I saw, Scorpius. Scorpius the other day, I got well, I was up at, like 530 in the morning, and it was just coming up over the horizon.

01;04;46;20 - 01;04;54;16
Roo
I'm like, I'll be darned. Summers. Yeah, I mean, it's a ways off, but it's coming, you know? It's definitely coming. So definitely, make it.

01;04;54;17 - 01;05;02;13
Nathan
This is so depressing. Isn't it? So depressing in the summer when you stay up really late and you start to see Orion come up and you're like, no, it's about to.

01;05;02;13 - 01;05;24;09
Roo
Get so cold, you know that it's finally coming to an end. It's true. Yeah. Well, man, this has been such a cool talk, man. I really, really, really appreciate you coming on the show. I really appreciate what you're doing. Let me just say one more time. There's a few spots left in the, the founders Group, for Astro Peak.

01;05;24;09 - 01;05;45;12
Roo
So if you would like to set up a scope at Astro Peak Observatories, you're welcome to go to their website. It's Astro peak dot space. But you can get a discount. If you want to sign up through the Patreon, go to Patreon.com forward slash the Astro cast. Me and Nathan are partnering together to help spread the word and hopefully get more people under dark skies.

01;05;45;12 - 01;06;00;23
Roo
That's really a I'm not going to make a killing off of it. I know Nathan's not going to make a killing off of it, but if we can get more people under dark skies and, you know, bring more awareness, to light pollution, then I think we've pretty much won the battle. Nate.

01;06;00;25 - 01;06;22;00
Nathan
Yeah. No, Andrew, you've been such an asset to this hobby. The Astro cast has grown immensely over the last couple of years, and you're doing some phenomenal things in this space and helping spread awareness to light pollution. And more importantly, you've built probably one of the greatest communities I've ever been a part of. Such good friends. You know, I it's just it's just it's just awesome.

01;06;22;01 - 01;06;38;28
Nathan
And you've done such a good job. And I would tell anybody who's listening to this that if you want, you know, forget joining. I know you always tell people to join your local club not forget it. Don't join your local to join the Astro cast. It is the best astronomy forum out there. And if you want to go hang out with your friends, that's fine.

01;06;38;28 - 01;06;45;12
Nathan
But you have to have to have to be an astro cast. It is the greatest astronomy club out there by a long shot.

01;06;45;15 - 01;07;01;02
Roo
It really is, man. We have so many cool people in there. I could go on all day long about everyone and we're always talking about something, so thank you for that, Nathan. I really appreciate it. And I'm just glad that I was able to be a conduit to bring so many great people together. So I'm, certainly happy to have done it.

01;07;01;02 - 01;07;18;18
Roo
So thank you so much for coming on the show this week with us, Nathan. I'm sure we'll be talking more in the coming months and, no doubt, I'll have you back on soon and we'll, talk about this and hopefully, I don't know if we'll talk before then or not, but I, I'm quite certain that we will be talking in person before too much longer.

01;07;18;22 - 01;07;21;06
Roo
And, I very much look forward to that, my friend.

01;07;21;09 - 01;07;24;24
Nathan
Thank you. Thank you for your support. And thanks for having me on. It's been a pleasure.

01;07;24;24 - 01;07;43;22
Roo
Absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Astro cast. I'm your host, drew. You've been listening to me talk with Nathan from Astro Peak Observatories. Please feel free to check them out at Astro Peak dot space or go to Patreon.com forward, slash the Astro cast and find me there. Thanks so much for tuning in this week.

01;07;43;22 - 01;07;49;08
Roo
I'm your host, drew, and as always, clear skies.

01;07;49;09 - 01;08;06;28
Captain Cumulus
Wednesday evening the feed goes live, whose voice cuts through the dark like 135 from backyards goes to mountain peaks. We're all tuned in. No time to sleep. Red dot finders. Come on. Correct his game.

01;08;06;28 - 01;08;07;19
Roo
He breaks it down.

01;08;07;19 - 01;08;25;29
Captain Cumulus
Like a simple, never faint comets, rising planets in the frame. Every week we chase the sky by name. Pixels glowing hearts of lions. Thousands of miles. One state of mind.

01;08;26;03 - 01;08;27;22
Roo
This is the astro cash.

01;08;27;27 - 01;08;56;03
Unknown
Where the dark brings us to the light. Before the UK lies wide awake under the same sky. This laughing it never quiet grows on the mic. The whole world's invited. This is the astro cats. Yeah, this is the Astro guys.

01;08;56;05 - 01;09;18;00
Unknown
Someone in Texas just snap the whole set. A guy in Chicago stacking flats till dawn. Belgium sharing deep sky drums while Switzerland southern say the roar of arms again. Beginners asking which way is north? All time is up and wisdom back and forth will last. You'll get it. Just wait and see. Welcome to the family 24 seven channels.

01;09;18;00 - 01;09;46;23
Unknown
Never sleep on lighting showcase. Blowing up the feed means a 3 a.m. coffee at noon. Someone's on stream in the rising moon. Where different flags, same obsession. So what I read and dark skies I saw. This is the iso gas where the dark brings us to light. From the ceiling to the Canadian. I is wide awake under the same sky.

01;09;46;25 - 01;10;15;28
Unknown
No borders in the food on fire brews. I'm the whole world united. This is the ISO gas. Yeah, this is the Astro Castle. Here's the room to grow to. The glow of what it is burning. Where the wild stars go. Wherever you are, whatever you shoot. You're never alone under that cosmic roof. Turn it up. Now that the neighbors can't is when they get so fast.

01;10;16;00 - 01;10;26;11
Unknown
On the way.

01;10;26;14 - 01;10;36;14
Unknown
Skies. Oh, I see you in the desk, boy. For a stroll. Cash never break.