​​In the past, I had been imaging with my Borg 77EDII refractor using a Hutech IDAS LPS-P2 filter in front of the optical train, mounted on to the Borg 7870 focal reducer. This was due to excessive light pollution in Gibraltar, benefiting from the excellent light pollution suppression performance of the filter. The Hutech IDAS LPS-P2 filter has the following transmission curve:

​This may seem like a fairly random and short blog post, but I wanted to comment on my experience with a particular USB 3.0 hub. Once you start gathering a fair number of pieces of equipment that require a USB connection to your computer, or have a permanent setup, you may find you need a USB hub of some kind. The Intel NUC5i5RYK Mini PC I use to control all my equipment has four USB 3.0 ports, which is excellent, but I needed more. I bought a fairly inexpensive powered (active) USB hub by Trust at Media Markt in Spain and after half an hour of using it at e-EyE (for my permanent setup), it started failing. A combination of the near 0°C temperatures and the abnormally high 87% humidity of the night must have killed it. Either way, I was grateful I had taken a spare​, which turned out to work like a champ!

With the Easter holidays off work for both my wife and I, we headed off to Extremadura in Spain, to stay a few nights at the e-EyE facility. This was not only a three-night break for us, but also a big step up for me personally, as I aimed to finally set up my astrophotography equipment there for remote hosting.