So this weekend, I installed the workstation in the observatory.

If you recall from my last post, I wanted to change from 2 computers in the observatory to a single workstation that controls everything. Using 2 was just annoying with remote desktop etc.

The previous post talked about the workstation build, which I’ve named Kronos – after the Klingon homeworld, this post is all about the install into the observatory itself.

One of my previous computers had died from a power surge – one of the dangers of living in a rural area of NZ. So the use of a UPS is a prudent safeguard to help prevent future problems. I’ve had this UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for a little while, it is rated at 1700W which is sufficient for my needs.

I wanted to control the workstation from both in the observatory and from the control room. The distances were roughly 5m each way. DisplayPort cable max length is quite short – 3m to be exact, so that was no good. Instead I went for a combination of DVI-D (for the older monitor in the telescope area) and HDMI for the LG Monitor in the control room.

I used active USB3 (again max length 3m unless it’s powered – so using powered, I got 5m) and USB2 (5m max length) to the telescope room. I used 2 x USB 3 cables, one for the control room, and one running up the pier to the telescope to run the ZWO Cameras and focusers.

As you can imagine – I had cables everywhere! so I pinned them up to the beams above to make it a bit tidier.

It’s not super tidy, but it keeps them out of the way.

The 5m run to the control room was only just enough. I ran the cable though some capping to keep it tidy, and that worked quite well, although it was a bit fiddly doing it just by myself.

The monitor is running at 2560×1440 WQHD resolution. It’s a Samsung SD850 32″, and the one in the control room is a Dell 32″ 2560×1600 via DVI. Quite large monitors, but that’s how I roll.

So the one computer is driving both monitors, keyboards and mice quite nicely. I configured windows to run both monitors cloned so that the same desktop displayed on both of them. This did result in a bit of wasted resolution in the observatory monitor, which had slightly more resolution to play with, but it wasn’t going to work in extended mode, as it was too awkward getting the application windows showing on both. I did try a utility called Ultramon which claims to support mirrored desktops using different resolutions but found there was a large hit on performance, so I didn’t run with it.

Networking was easier with the workstation located centrally next to the network cabinet. I ran a couple of network cables up the pier, to control the telescope and a spare one.

I am also running the 12v Power supply and network switch from the UPS. I figured why not… better to be safe than sorry.

The Linksys WRT1900ACS router on the left is running DD-WRT – an open-source, Linux based alternative OS for routers – which is very secure.

So that’s the cabling and Kronos workstation installed with the 5m cables, surprisingly time-consuming getting all the cabling squared away nicely, but worth it. Much rather have a single computer running everything, simple is always better with stuff like this.

One big advantage of having the ‘Kronos’ workstation underneath the telescope area is that the noise from the fans is well away from both areas, and it’s actually very quiet, can hardly hear it in fact, so it won’t interfere with me playing music via Spotify in the control room! Nice. It’s also a cooler temperature under there, which is good as well.

Update: I’ve managed to find a great set of speakers to plug into the monitor on my desk. These are fantastic – check out these reviews, cost me $67 on Trademe! – I’m super happy with them.

Next up, software install.

Kirk out.

The observatory was using two computers, one for the control room, and another in the telescope area. I utilised Remote Desktop from the control room to control the telescope computer. A power surge killed the ‘better’ computer in the control room, so it was time for an upgrade.

Meet Kronos. Named after the Klingon home-world.

I really wanted just a single computer to run everything in the observatory. I figured if I’m going to upgrade, might as well do it properly.

I wanted a machine that was not going to crash (ECC Ram), and was suitable for Pixinsight image processing, and was as bulletproof as possible – redundant hard drives.

After an exhaustive search of TradeMe for a server, I found a great deal for an old HP Proliant ML350 Generation 8 tower server. This machine appealed to me, because it used DDR3 ECC Ram (which is dirt cheap), had dual processors (loads of grunt), dual power supplies and had onboard RAID functionality (resilient).

The processors were pretty rubbish, so I searched on Aliexpress for some better ones. I happened across 2 x E5-2696v2 Xeon processors which run at 2.5GHz. Each CPU runs 12 cores 24 threads and provides a very acceptable 24000 passmark score. This is pretty fast, about the same speed as a Intel Core i9-10900K @ 3.70GHz, at a much cheaper price.

I found some cheap DDR3, ECC Ram on TradeMe, and boosted that up to 150GB, then I bought 13 x 600GB 2.5″ SAS Drives ($20 ea) to compliment the 3x1TB drives 2.5″ SAS drives already in it. I did all this over some time, waiting for the right deals to come up.

I had 2 x Nvidia Geforce GTX1080 graphics cards in Vulcan my main gaming PC, but many games don’t support SLI that well, so I figured I’d move one of those across to Kronos. I figured the graphics grunt would really help with Starry Night Pro 8 with the OpenGL drivers.

But I hit a problem, crazy weird graphics behaviour, screen flickering, windows errors…

Why? – because the dual 460W power supplies weren’t sufficient to power all of the components, the Nvidia GTX1080 is a power-hungry card – with the server already having two 125W processors and fully loaded with drives it was too much. So I picked up a couple of 750W redundant power supplies from TradeMe for $70 each, and that fixed the problem.

I configured the raid array with two volumes, 1 Raid5 (3x1TB) – that’s for programs. The second volume I configured as Raid60 (12x600gb) +1 drive spare. This will give me dual drive failure protection plus striping for performance. I will use this volume for the astrophotography images. I don’t want to lose them, and the volume needs to be performant for PixInsight.

The PC was booting fine, so I installed Windows 10, installed the drivers and it was all good. The beast really runs well and would make a pretty decent gaming rig in addition to its observatory duties. It is a bit noisy though with all the fans.

One advantage to the Samsung monitor on my desk is that it supports audio via HDMI and has an audio out port. This means I can plug in some active speakers, and avoids having to install an audio card (no default audio on the ML350pG8). The Nvidia GTX1080 card is running dual duty with it’s HD audio functionality.

Just need to install it in the observatory now…

Kirk out.