The allsky laptop computer had a drive failure Friday around midnight. Since then we’ve been running drive diagnostics and repair attempts until just this morning it is back up and running again… just in time for nice dark skies near new moon. Too late for the aurora we had Saturday early evening though.
In this image you can see the two 24vdc dome heaters, the 12vdc circulation fan, the camera lens, the internal mask to hide local lighting and the dark fabric to reduce dome internal reflections.
The laptop is now 8 years old (circa 2004) and its 40gb drive is nearing end of life to be sure. So, time to start looking for a smaller, less power hungry netbook to replace it with.