July 2, 2018 - The documentation and installer for the current version of Abbey Ridge Auto-Pilot was updated on the website.

June 4, 2018 - Saturday was the 15th anniversary of "first image" for the observatory. The first images taken on the night of June 2, 2002 included M3, NGC 5746, and NGC 4565 and were done manually. In 2002, the telescope was a Celestron 11-inch with an SBIG ST9E CCD camera.

Last night I sent the telescope three Facebook Messenger messages from my easy chair and it happily took those images automatically while I slept ... progress! The telescope now is a Celestron 14-inch with SBIG ST8XME CCD camera.

May, 2018 - In April and May a new shutter controller was built based on the Burke-Gaffney Observatory's controller which uses Bluetooth for communications and is powered by a 12V lead acid battery. Some firmware programming changes were done to make it more reliable. 

ARO Shutter Controller