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Domain105

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Everything posted by Domain105

  1. Those look awesome. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to touch the scope again for a while 😄 I'll add the vanes to my next round of upgrades. Thanks for the info on these.
  2. Hello Lee, thanks for the comments. 🙂 Yes I now have the Baader click lock and the SW F4 CC. the click lock is fatter than the native SW focus tube connector so you lose some mm to that from the overall focus tube but I found that focus is achieved with the focuser set to around 2000 steps. 0 being the tube fully in the OTA (as much as the click lock allows due to it's thickness) and 18,000 being the focus tube fully extended. The SW F4 CC seems to be the same size as the focus tube itself so fully inserted, it does not protude outside the focus tube. With the focus tube only a cm or so out side of the OTA at step 2000 to achieve focus, I was expecting pacman stars with the focus tube obstructing the light path but this isn't happening at all. My stars seem to be round and okay. So no need to cut the focus tube or the SW F4 CC getting in the way of the optical path. One thing I didn't mention, that is helping with star and spikes is that I 3D printed a primary mirror clip cover to cover the mirror clips so the diffraction spikes are more clean now.
  3. Thank you. 🙂 Was so close to throwing the scope out the window at times !
  4. Sorry for the long post but it has been a painful and costly journey moving from a DSLR to a dedicated astro cam. so many things when wrong but it all has come good in the end. Apologies if this in in the wrong sub forum. Having spent the last few months upgrading from: Canon EOS 350D Skywatcher 0.9x Coma Corrector to: Risingcam IMX571 OSC camera Anlia ALP-T filter using my: Skywaycher 150PDS HEQ5 mount with Rowan belt mod What I thought was a straightforward move from one camera to another became a long tale of woe and heartache. One issue would spawn another and so on to the point I wanted to just give up. I finally overcame my long list if issues which came apparent after the camera upgrade: Not being able get the correct back focus without spending £££ on all sorts of extension rings Getting horrible white circles in the middle of my lights and flats due to the ALP-T and coma corrector reflecting off each other Decided to flock the scope in case it was that causing the reflections Realised that once I took everything apart I couldn't get the secondary mirror to align correctly and need to collimate As everything was stripped away from the OTA to flock it, the tube was bent out of shape which meant the secondary mirror vanes were all over the place. I attached one of the tube rings to the very end and tightened very hard to keep a circular shape as I put the vanes back. Overall the tube rings are needed to keep the OTA's circular shape so once I added then back on, things were better. Realised that I had tilt in the focus tube so any adjustments to the focus tube meant collimation was out again Using a cheshire eyepiece I would get what I thought was collimation bang on but using a laser collimator (collimated to 20 meters) the alignment off both secondary and primary was way off Got in to a vicious circle of fixting tilt and then collimation would be off, fixing the collimation and the laser collimator was way off. - spend a month in this cycle finally purchased a concentric collimation eyepiece and managed to get the secondary and primary aligned ok Figured out that flocking made no difference to the reflections so bought a Baader MPC MKIII to see if it would help Baader made matters worse as no matter what I did - even with adjustments of 0.1mm, stars in the corners were still showing massive coma. top left was worse due to some slight tilt still in the focus tube Thought I'd fix the tilt issue by purchasing a Baader click lock as the eyepiece screws on the focus tube were shifting the angle of the coma corrector Realised the Baader click lock might not let me achive focus as it was too fat on the end of the focus tube Tried it with the Skywatcher 0.9x coma corrector and focus would be at around -1500 thats 1500 steps after the tube is fully in!! Tried the click lock with the Baader MPC MKIII and that got me focusing ok as it was not a reducer so focus was around 3000 steps (focuser range was 0-18000 steps). Still had the problem with the dodgy stars on the edges even with the click lock holding things tight Through experimentation figured out that the Antlia ALP-T needed to be infront of the coma corrector for no reflections (did try facing the filter in different directions facing the camera but that made no difference!). So ditched my Starlight Xpress filter wheel which has the filter between the camera and coma corrector and screwed it in front of the coma corrector instead This fixed the horrible white circle reflections !!!!! Started reading up on the Skywatcher F4 aplanatic coma corrector so though if it can fix coma on a F4 then it should be better on a F5. so finally purchased on from FLO Test it at 54mm backspace and the coma was virtually gone, even the slight tilt that I had in the upper right corner was gone!!! Thought I'd test the white reflections issue again with the filter wheel so I added the ALP-T into the filterwheel again (instead of in front of the coma corrector) and oh my goodness, there were no horrible white circle reflections in my lights or flats. All this transpired over 7 or so months. At times, I was close to thowing everything out and giving up but I'm glad I didn't. With everythging working and some clear skies at last, I took the follwing image of the North America Nebula. Forgot to take RBG stars but I'll do that another day 68 x 180s subs using the Anlia ALP-T filter @ -10c 32 flats + 32 dark flats 20 x 180s flats I live in inner city Birmingham so a very Bortle 8 all around and the moon was also very bright having just past full moon. Processing was using PI (SPCC, BXT, GHS, NXT, SXT with some saturation and curves modifications, HOO normalisation plugin) and not much else. I am very pleased with the image - especially after the saga I had to go through. Not sure the colours will suit everyone's taste as I am colour blind LOL Having read through this site in search of answers, I have found the following which might be useful to others: Narrow band filters such as the ALP-T and other HA filters will likely cause reflections on Baader MPC and skywatcher F5 coma correctors if you have them between the camera and coma corrector (using a filter wheel) - screwing the filter to the end of the coma corrector will likey fix the reflections issue. There are a number of posts about this issue on SGL and elsewhere There are some posts about a Baader click lock not allowing for focus to be reached on 150PDS OTAs. I found this to be true when using the Skytwatcher 0.9x coma corrector but with the Baader MPC MKIII and the Skywatcher F4 aplanatic coma corrector, the scope reaches focus about 15mm from the focuser barrel tube. The Skywatcher 150PDS focuser can carry a lot of weight. I have a heavy Skywatcher F4 Coma corrector, Starlight Xpress 2" filter wheel, Risingcam IMX571 camera hanging of the focuser and it is handled with no issues with slippping etc . I have tried it straight up and down for push / push scenarios. The focuser is connected to a ZWO EAF which holds the weight well with no issues Even the tiniest push from the eyepiece holder screws can push out a laser collimator - hence the use of a click lock. Make sure your laser colimator is also collmated Cheap chesire collimation eyepieces from Amazon / ebay did not seem to be centered in my focuser tube, using a concentric collimation eyepiece was the only thing I could get decent collimation with. The skywatcher F4 aplanatic coma corrector works extremely well with a 150PDS. With the Skywatcher 0.9x I found it was brilliant with my DSLR up to the corners but moving to a dedicated camera of the same chip size (APS-C) it just struggled with coma. The Baader MPC MKIII was even worse but could let me focus using the click lock One thing I didn't appreciated until now was that both the Skywatcher 0.9x and Baader MPC soften the stars so they are not sharp like in the good astro photos we see here. the F4 gave me really sharp pinpoint stars. My FWHM improved with the F4 CC too when comapred to the other coma correctors The image below is the first one I have taken since things started to work. so looking forward to lots of new images with my setup. I've covered a lot of things here but please let me know if you need any more detail on the issues I've has incase it can help you with something similar.
  5. This is exactly what I did to get my measurements
  6. Hello, if you need any help or guidance on building a structure like I did above, give me a shout. My 'obsy' has just enough room for me to get in, sit on a stool and tinker around what I need to. Obviously witht the roof off, I have more room. I did everything wirelessly but there are times where you do need to get in. The comment about planning ahead for future scope is important. I have a 150PDS and the roof fully off give me only a few cm of space in each side. Had I a much larger scope then it would not fit. If I was to chance scopes, I would probably opt for a smaller imaging refractor so hopefully that would be a good fit too. Goodluck with whatever you decide. Regards
  7. Hello, I completed the motorised roof a little while ago. I will post a new thread with all the details of that. Sorry was hoping to do it sooner but work and life got in the way. I'll take some pics this weekend hopefully and update with a new thread.
  8. Hi, looking good. Glad what I did to build my pier a while ago maybe helped you out. If you need any more info, let me know and I will be happy to help. Since my build, I have automated the roof opening and closing with a solar panel and roller chain. I'm now in the process of buidling an all sky camera to mount on my obsy. Was the best decision ever. you will not regret it. It makes such a big difference. Goodluck and I hope all goes well 🙂
  9. Hello, Image Details: Skywatcher 150PDS Skywatcher Coma Corrector Canon 450D modded Camera QHY5 Guide scope HEQ5 Pro (Rowan Belt Mod) 300 x 120sec lights @ ISO800 (10 Hours) 40 x Flats 60 x Darks 35 x Bias CLS Light Pollution Clip In Filter Bortle 8 BackYard EOS - Camera control Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker Gimp / Photoshop / Lightroom to process My longest ever imaging session over 2 nights from inner city Birmingham. I tried not to clip the back point but I think I may have over done it. Stars were difficult top process too and zooming in, they are deformed but look ok at normal zoom. The CLS filter makes the colours hard to process but they look ok to me now (I'm colour blind so they may be off for others! ). I'm please with the detail I managed to get but at 10 hours in a Bortle 8, I believe I am at the limit of what my kit can achieve. Hope you enjoy
  10. I was in a similar situation where I did not want the extra construction for the roll off structure as space was limited so went with heavy duty drawer slides. First winter since I built my obsy and the roof still slides very smoothly. I made sure they were not exposed to the elements by keeping them inside the structure. So far they are working well with no stickiness or anything. 6months is not long for the rails so I'll see come a year or two!
  11. Hello, Image Details: Skywatcher 150PDS Skywatcher Coma Corrector Canon 450D modded Camera QHY5 Guide scope HEQ5 Pro (Rowan Belt Mod) 30 x 240sec lights @ ISO800 20 x Flats 40 x Darks 15 x Bias CLS Light Pollution Clip In Filter Bortle 8 BackYard EOS - Camera control Gimp / Photoshop / Lightroom to process This is my first image outside of the 'Getting started With Imaging' section 🙂. This was a bit of a struggle. I was hoping to have a lot more subs but forgot about the meridian flip so off I went to watch TV a the flip occurred but it didn't continue to guide and the scope was pointing in the wrong place. May need to look into NINA for auto flip / PHD2 and plate solving once flipped. By the time I realised what happed, I had lost about 2 hours 😞 I also couldn't get PHD2 to work with BackYard EOS for dithering so used the ASCOM dithering option in BYEOS but I don't think it did anything. Tested BYEOS and PHD2 today and its working fine now. I think with my camera and processing tools, this is about the limit of what I can squeeze out of very light polluted skies and a non dedicated Astro Camera. I'm wanting to move to the RisingCam IMX571 and NINA soon with PixInsight to process. Just need to save a bit first! Please let me have your thoughts on how to improve. I think with my setup, there is not much more I can do (other than more integration time!). I appreciate colours may be off. It's not easy getting these right with me being colour blind.
  12. Hello, I really struggle with colours. I'm VERY red green colour blind so what looks normal to me often offends my missus 😄 . Not an ideal situation when you are trying to eek out colour from images. I use a CLS Clip in light pollution filter which really messes up the colours anyway. They all seem very red / green to me. Hoping to move to the IMX571 sensor (ASI2600) in the near future along with L-pro to control the light pollution which I am hoping will give more truer colours. From a image processing point of view, I have a mix of Gimp, Photoshop and had Topaz denoise for a while on trial. I really do need to move up to something like Pixinsight at some point too.
  13. Some images I've taken since setting up the obsy. I live in a Bortle 8/9 zone and only have a modded Canon 450D (hoping to get a Asi294MC at some point) on a HEQ5 with a SW150PDS and a 9x50 finderscope with a QHY5 guide cam. Subs are 5 mins each using a CLS filter for the light pollution. The images are a lot better now as I can expose for hours rather than the short times I did before.
  14. Hello Rob. Thanks for the kind words. I've been using it since the summer and it working perfectly. I am getting dew on the concrete pier on the outer plastic tubing but nothing on the scope or camera it self. One thing I have changed is that I still had to get up out of my comfy bed in the middle of the night to close the roof if rain was forecast over night. So what I have now done is add a motorised roof system to it. I'll try upload some pics but essentially it uses a motor (12v high torque low RPM) with some sprockets and a roller chain to pull the roof close and open. I've connected it all to a WIFI relay switch which I can control from my mobile. Now I can close the roof once done without having to get up. I also installed a wifi IP cam in the obsy so I can make sure the telescope is in the horizontal position before I close the roof. As the 12v motor I used was self locking so without power, the roof cannot be opened. I got a small 12v 7AH battery, a solar charge controller and a 50W solar panel which I will connect to the roof motor so I can open and close without connecting external power. It was not really necessary but I wanted to add some solar panel elements to it. I've only set the polar alignment once using Sharpcap and not touched it since. I can do 5 mins subs with no trailing using PHD2 so that is working fine. It is a bit cramped in the obsy but I don't really go in it much. My imaging routing is now... connect the external power via the commando socket Turn on the mount power Turn on the DSLR Take off the telescope and finderscope covers Connect my laptop to the USB cable from the USB hub (which everything else is connected to) Turn on the laptop Go inside and connect via RDP to the laptop and image. Once done, I put the scope in its horizontal home position and close the roof. All done 🙂 Everything has been weather proofed but I am looking out for wet patches if any occur. Not found anything so far luckily. Give me a shout if you need anything etc Happy to do a video for you or even a video call and give you a guided tour if you like. I'm here if you need any help mate. 🙂
  15. Really lovely images and from a light polluted London sky too. I feel your pain trying to image from inner city Birmingham.
  16. Hello, you could try modify the following command line - How to sort files into folders, according to file names - Windows CMD - Super User. It's a PowerShell script so would need to be saved as a .PS1 file. I think it's close to what you want but might need some modification.
  17. Thank you. Just waiting for clear night's now but from what I have done, the setup time is now minutes compared to an hour or so before.
  18. An that's pretty much it! I added corner strips to the cladding to make it look neat, some padlock thingies to add 2 padlocks to keep the roof locked. So the build is complete and I am very happy with it. I've now added in the scope and other bits and bobs. the scope is horizontal when the roof is closed. I've added this as a home position in EQASCOM. I've created some "pockets" on the inside of the obsy where I keep my laptop during imaging sessions. It may not be the most extravagant of obsys but I'm really happy with it. I hope you have enjoyed the obsy build journey with me and hopefully it may have helped some of you with you own builds. Next step it to automate the roof opening and closing via a smart app. I've got a prototype working but I will start a new thread for that.
  19. With the door on, I thought I'd get the electrics out the way. I have an external socked so just created a 3pin to 16A commando (female) cable. It had to be female as if I had the plug in the external socket with the power on, I did not want the pins from a male connector to electrocute me. On the out side of the obsy, I installed an 16A commando (male) socket that the power would plug into. On the inside of the obsy, I connected an external 3 pin power supply to power my scope and mount etc. So the power link goes something like this: 3Pin external power socket ----> 3 pin plug -----16A Female commando ---->16A male commando on obsy exterior ---> 3 pin external socket in the internal of the obsy ---> extension gang I also added a door lock to keep things locked up when not in use
  20. originally I didn't think about adding a door to get in and out. I thought I'd just climb over the top! then I realised I would need a mini door to get in and out as needed. Also added some handles to allow for easy roof opening and closing. I copied my door design from my shed at the back of the garden
  21. The sides went in next. Got a load of cladding which looked really nice and was quite easy to install.
  22. I've been meaning to update this post with my finished obsy pics but the year has passed and I still haven't so here are the finishing pics for the obsy. Things left from last time were sides, door, flooring etc... So here is the flooring I added over the concrete floor. Everything is heavily wood stained to keep it weather proof
  23. Hi Turbocoo, to be honest I didn't realise you also had a runner build but if you were first then I take my hat off to you sir! 🙂 They do work really well don't they! I still need to update this thread with the final completion pictures
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