If like me you hate doing cal frames late night or early morning after an imaging session, then you may think an auto Flat Panel is a bit of an expensive luxury but believe me, you'll very quickly change your mind.

I have two Deep Sky Dad auto Flat Panels, one on my ES127ED CF and one on my widefield TS65 Quad, both scopes with EW
FW's and EAF's.

These flat panels are great in every way. They fit the scopes perfectly, they can be used with/without suitable imaging software or manually by the simple press of a button. The flat LED lighting panel can also be switched on manually or controlled entirely by an imaging program for panel brightness, heater temperature to keep any dew off the LED panel and of course open/close.

I use and totally recommend NINA and the Flat w#Wizard process is simply a dream to use for a "lazy" astrophotographer.

At the end of an imaging session I simply use the Flat Wizard without leaving my warm office and the process completes fully automatically Flats and Flat Darks and the actual Flats are really "flat" and accurate.

And finally, some years ago I completely flooded a scope with an unexpected heavy rain storm, not any more; simply close the flap manually by push button or as I do automatically from the program and even program the Advanced Sequencer in NINA to completely automatically perform all the Flats & Flat Darks you need at the end of the session and then go through the NINA auto close-down.

The first time you use one, you will absolutely forget that you thought it was expensive