The  pier was  installed and the new observatory became operational on October 1, 2004.  Above are first light images acquired during the following week over the course of two nights with a bright waning moon. Needless to say the dome did an excellent job shielding the telescope.  I was actually sleeping through most of these only getting up once or twice to push the dome around as the tracking system has yet to be installed. Both images were acquired with the FSQ 106 at f/5 with an 14nm Astronomik filter used for Ha and Goldman True Balance RGB's. All subexposures were 10 minutes. This was my first run with CCD Autopilot as well as Maxim DL/CCD version 4.   Sky conditions were excellent for my suburban site yet my images are not quite there yet as my processing skills are a bit rough after taking more than 6 months off from imaging to build the observatory.  In addition to imaging the night sky, Fleenor Observatory is now actively participating in exoplanet detection via photometric transit observations. When the automation system is fully operational every clear night will be utilized for unattended collection of data for imagery and science!
 

More obs pictures can be found here.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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