Graeme

On 22/06/2023 at 00:03, adyj1 said:

I followed astrobloke-and-joe's ROR guide (with a few tweaks) with this motor from Amazon (currently £140,got it pre-pandemic for just over £100)

CO-Z Electronic Gate Opener Kit Automatic Sliding Gate Opener for Gate Up to 600KG 200W Gate Opener Motor with 8 Gear Racks and Remote Controls (200W)

 

Cheers Adyj, just ordered mine!

Graeme

17 hours ago, Starflyer said:

I use a 174 with an OAG at 1200fl and have plenty of stars.  I get some vignetting with the QHY OAG prism, but I wanted the sensitivity, large(ish) pixels and large sensor.

Thanks for that. I'm leaning towards the 174 but I'll try my 224 first. 

Mind you, FLO have a 220 on sale now! Starting to loose sight of the forest because of all the trees! 😁

Graeme

18 hours ago, Elp said:

With the 290 no, it's bad enough trying to find half a dozen stars at 1000mm focal length at standard 1 x 1. Maybe that's where the 174 larger sensor comes in handy, but I'd only pay the extra for it if I were to use it for ha solar.

I ask because I posted a guiding question on the PHD Google Groups and the recommendation was to 2 x 2 my 290 to increase the sensitivity.

But I have put my planetary ASI224 in the OAG to try now and I'm waiting for a clear night!

Graeme

5 hours ago, Elp said:

I use a 290mm so the 174 will be fine.

Do you bin it 2 x 2?

6 hours ago, rcwinter said:

I use the 220mm which works well, nice and sensitive and reasonable size chip, the 174 is an awesome camera which would do the job, overkill yes for the smaller OAG but the OAG L is fine, however the 174 can be used for planetry work and is brill with solar which i use mine on , not so good for DS as the chip is noisy like the 183mm but all useable , the 174 is great expand its use if you go that way to make it worth the expense 

hope that helps a little, BTW the 294 is a nice camera enjoy.

Rich

That's helpful Rich, thanks.

Does anyone use a ZWO ASI 174MM Mini for guiding on an SCT with an OAG?

I was using an old QHY but it struggles now! So I tried my Altair GP Cam290C. the image in PHD2 was a lot larger but it was too dim and 2 x 2 binning is not available with that camera so I can't improve on the number of guide stars available.

The 174MM was recommended by a retailer but I don't want to over stretch the budget unless the results justify it. The ASI174 sensor is good and large but the ZWO OAG mirror and aperture is quite small. So I wondered if the ASI174 was overkill and a lesser camera (ASI120 etc) would suffice.

Graeme

9 hours ago, LongJohn54 said:

Don't worry about your roof runners and supports, they look plenty strong enough.  Mine are 3 x 2 timber (horizontal) each backed up with two strips of 1 inch angle iron which makes for a very lightweight construction.  My roof weighs about 220Kg and I stand on it when opened (another 95kg) to trim back next doors leylandi. Eight years on and they are still straight and level.

Your obsy looks great. 👍

 

 

Thanks Long John.

I hope my build lasts as long, 8 years should see me out! 

Graeme

7 hours ago, Naughty Neal said:

It's looking good Graeme , but for me it is too techy .  Techy is stuff I don't really understand , one reason why I don't have a hand hed phone.

Cheers Neal

I love a bit of techy!

Edit: Also, the flat frame light box is not too techy, it's left over white LEDs, cardboard and duct tape covered in some A1 white paper!

Graeme

The cables are pulled into the pipes and the pipes are boxed in. I fitted a desk which matches the drawers, made out of the same G Plan teak, veneer wood. If it's clear tonight I'll be setting up the guiding. If it's cloudy I'll re-do my darks library.

18 hours ago, powerlord said:

 .... I've got more outer shells this time than I've ever had before. 

That's an excellent image. You've got more outer shells than I've ever seen before! Is that the capturing power of the ASI2600?

Graeme

Brilliant aerial shots!

It's nice to see the finished thing.

Graeme

On 09/06/2019 at 12:51, xtreemchaos said:

p.s a friend of mine in the states Lowjiber

Does anyone know what happened to John?

Graeme

6 hours ago, Mike Q said:

I am sure that is probably NEVER going to happen.  There would be a better chance of me learning temperature in C..... that isn't happening either

Take off 30 and half what's left!

Everybody needs a roll off roof observatory! I look forward to watching you build yours.

Good luck

Regards

Graeme

Got a floor now! Got a temporary table too which will get replaced by a fixed desk. But I can get up and running with the laptop.

I need to get the mains cable and Cat 5 cables in from the garage next. 

I've got a pier that's sprayed black, a mounted mount with a telescope on it and it's a clear night tonight! 

Shame about the Moon!

Well that's the outside all done! I used the remainder of the roofing felt to cover the gable ends. I think it works but not sure if I like the roofing tac nail heads, it might need some sort of trim around the edge. But for now I need to crack on! Using a different type of wood on the last strip at the top of the walls might have been an error, probably should have got some more feather edge boards and cut them to fit. Then I would have got a better colour match. I've knocked out the bricks for the air vents but I need some sort of anti spider mesh before the vents goes in. I must do something about that gap at the end of the angle iron when the roof is open, but that can wait for now.

Need to crack on with the inside now!

Graeme

M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, now with added supernova! This is my first image since last August! I was off sick for the second half of last year and I've been building (slowly) my new observatory this year, so it's the observatory first light image too. The build is still unfinished but the astro imaging withdrawal became too much after I heard about the supernova!

9.25STC, CGX, f/6.3 Focal Reducer, Pegasus PB Advance, ASI294MC Pro. 65 x 60 second Lights, unguided because I couldn't focus the guide camera! 10 x Darks, 30 x Flats, 30 x Dark Flats. Captured in NINA 20/05/23.  Stacked and processed in Pixinsight. 

It's great to be back in the game!

Regards

Graeme

And here's my processed observatory first light image:

64 x 60 second subs, 10 darks, 30 flats, 30 dark flats. Captured with NINA. Stacked and Processed in Pixinsight.

Not bad for an unguided image but I probably need to watch some more processing videos! It's been too long!

Graeme

9 hours ago, Priesters said:

Certainly not the cheapest I’ve seen on SGL and definitely not the most sturdy but nevertheless quite pleased with this and most importantly it’s atheistically acceptable to my other half.  The shed/summerhouse in the background is command centre 🚀 so I can stay cosy in winter.  Also in the highly unlikely event of me giving up on Astronomy I’m sure it could be put to good use for other things.  🙂

The round base looks good. Did you auger it? 

Graeme

2 hours ago, whipdry said:

Focusing a guide camera at night shouldn't be a problem,

Thanks Peter, I've always managed it before now but matching the guide camera focus to the main camera focus when using an OAG is a lot easier during the day. I had a look at it today but the trees in the distance that I used before are no longer visible due to the observatory wall! I could take the OTA off the mount and bring it out where it can see the trees but I'll probably just keep going out to the observatory and tweaking it some more!  😀

Graeme

Partially successful! The camera failed to download a couple of times and I had to disconnect and re-connect to get it going again. The guiding didn't display an image probably because I didn't focus it in daylight like you're supposed to do! And I didn't seem to be able to focus it in the dark. As a result I wasn't able to guide and was limited to 60 second exposures. But I'm still claiming this as a win since the aim was to set up, polar align, test everything and capture an image of the supernova in M101. I'll have a look today to see if the trees in the distance that I used previously for day time focusing are still visible over my observatory wall.

In the meantime, here's my observatory first light image, single frame, 60 seconds, unprocessed, M101, SN2023ixf:

I've put in four more diagonal supports under the roof roll off timbers and they're fixed with 6" x 5mm screws. That should do for now!

And I've put the floor subframe in today. Can't put the floor down yet till I've done the air bricks, put a conduit in for a light switch and done a final check for water ingress after it rains.

It's not going to rain tonight, in fact it's forecast clear, So I've set up the mount, the telescope and the lap top. I'm going to have a go at M101 and see if I can capture an image of the supernova that was spotted yesterday. And if it's clear tomorrow too, I'll get some more data, because I can now I've got an observatory!

Graeme

Hello

I'm contemplating getting a grab and go set up to grab if I go anywhere and I was looking at the Sky-Watcher Startravel 120T and EQ3 PRO Go-To.

Anybody used these?

It would be for visual and for astrophotography.

Regards

Graeme

Thanks for that Malc. Your input is appreciated.  I would agree with all that you are saying. The beams are sitting on a noggin fixed to the post rather than just hanging off the screws because I wanted to get the posts in, concrete cured ready to go before I cut the posts to height so as to allow the beams to be fixed at a perfect horizontal. So they are held with 4 x 3" x 12s at each end in total. 

I think my way forward is to put in two more 4 x 2s to double the thickness of the beams and 4 x diagonal braces to support them and crack on! That should suffice. My first priority is to get the thing up and running so that I can do some astrophotography, it's been a long time! I can monitor the cross beams each time the roof is opened and if I do get some sag in the future I'll add two more uprights. 

Graeme

1 hour ago, Naughty Neal said:

It will be better if adding another 4 x 2 , to do so by having it on edge to form a T section beam  plus the bracing for  rigidity.

 

Hello NN. 

I did consider turning the support beams from horizontal to vertical for rigidity but decided to keep them the same as the other timbers. Good job I did now that the steels need most of the width to remain parallel.  I like your T section idea, cheers.

Graeme