My Rig @ Starfront in Texas

Starfront Observatories – the Official Video

My astrophotography rig is hosted remotely at Starfront Observatories in Texas, USA – on a Lite Pier in Building 8, under some of the darkest skies reachable by a hosted setup. Starfront lies in Rockwood near Brady in Central Texas, the geographic “Heart of Texas”, far from the light domes of any major city – the skies there are rated Bortle 1 (SQM 21–22 mag/arcsec²), with 220–250 clear nights per year. Local time is US Central Time (UTC−6, 7 hours behind Germany), so while Texas enjoys clear night skies, my day in Germany is already beginning.

An impression of the site – the official video from Starfront Observatories:

I operate the rig entirely from Germany: sequencing, guiding, focusing, and power control all run remotely, and the raw data finds its way home automatically.

The rig during assembly – WO GT81 with guide scope on the ZWO AM5 mount

The rig on its pier – imaging train, AM5 mount head, and cabling

The Rig at a Glance

Telescope: William Optics GT81 – 81 mm f/5.9 FPL-53 triplet apochromat, 478 mm focal length
Reducer/Flattener: WO FLAT6AIII 0.8× → 382.4 mm at f/4.72
Mount: ZWO AM5 harmonic-drive mount on a fixed pier (no counterweight, ≈ 7.3 kg of 13 kg payload)
Main camera: Player One Ares-M Pro – IMX533 mono, 3008² px, 3.76 µm – image scale 2.03″/px, FOV 1.69° × 1.69°
Filter wheel: ZWO EFW 8× 1.25″ – Ha, OIII, SII + LRGB (parfocal – one spacer stack, no reshimming)
Focuser: ZWO EAF on the GT81's 2.5″ rack & pinion focuser
Guiding: WO 50 mm f/4 guide scope + ASI290MM Mini – 2.99″/px, ~1.5× the imaging scale
Dew control: Dew Not heater straps on both dew shields, auto-driven by a temperature/humidity probe
Rig PC: Beelink EQ14 mini-PC (Windows 11) on a VESA pier mount
Pier cam: ZWO ASI662 (IMX662, 1920×1080) – fixed to the pier, watching rig and roof
Power hub: Pegasus Pocket Powerbox Advance Gen2 + APC Back-UPS + Kasa HS300 smart strip

Mechanical Stack & Optical Train

The full load path from the pier up, the imaging train from the GT81 to the sensor (with the complete back-focus budget of 55.7 mm from flattener face to sensor), and the guide train riding on the tube rings:

Diagram: mechanical stack, imaging train, and guide train of the rig

Power, USB & Network Topology

Wall power runs through an APC UPS into the Kasa HS300 smart strip; the Pegasus PPBA Gen2 distributes 12 V and USB on the mount and drives the dew heaters from its temperature/humidity probe. The Beelink sits on the Starfront network with a static IP, and a pier cam (ZWO ASI662) keeps an eye on rig and roof:

Diagram: power, USB, and network topology of the rig

Software Stack

N.I.N.A. is the orchestrator – Advanced Sequencer, autofocus, meridian flip, and the Ground Station plugin for outbound alerts to Discord. PHD2 handles guiding, ASTAP plate-solving, and Pegasus Unity the power box. Everything talks through the ASCOM platform, so any device can be swapped without N.I.N.A. noticing. Remote access from Germany runs over a WireGuard VPN and remote desktop; the Kasa smart strip provides out-of-band power control – the only way in when the PC itself is down.

Data Path

N.I.N.A. writes FITS to the Beelink's SSD; rclone copies them incrementally and unattended to Dropbox. At home in Germany, Siril opens the files straight out of Dropbox – no manual transfer at any point.

A Night at Starfront

Timelapse from the pier cam: