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Sooo I finally got my remote observatory up and running after some intense weekends of building during the summer and autumn. I'm so glad everything seems to be working out as planned! This is my first image from the new location, it's a two pane mosaic of the Rosette Nebula consisting of 50 minutes per filter and pane, so around 5 hours in total. Not much integration time compared to what I'm used to imaging from home next to and airport in the middle of Stockholm I also started using the Xterminator-tools in PixInsight, what a game-changer!! It feels like cheating, but I never really enjoyed the image processing part of the hobby before so I'll just ignore that feeling. Thanks for watching! Patrik

6 years later and it's time for an update 😀 I never bought any roof opening device, so I have to open it manually each night I want to image. That's no problem though and only takes a couple of seconds. The build itself has worked flawlessly, no leakages and no problems with humidity or bugs! The only annoyance is having to take the scope in after the imaging season ends in March, due to dust and pollen accumulating on the gear between April-October However, I have decided it's time to move the observatory to the countryside, making it fully automated 🤑 I'm gonna try converting the roof to a rolling one. Except for that there should be no need for other adjustments. My new babies arrived the other day, hopefully it will fit in the "new" observatory without any major modifications (1.2x1.2 m is really on the tight side for my current setup). It's an Altair pier and a iOptron CEM70G. My AVX has worked fine (except for DEC backlash) giving me 0.7 RMS guiding, but the CEM70 should be a better fit for a remote observatory three hours away. The goal is to have everything ready when imaging season starts again in October!

Sooo, this is my first attempt at a mosaic, and my first use of the Omegon veTEC 571M. So far there are 2 panels, BIN 2x2. HA: 15x5 min per panel OIII: 15x5 min per panel I think I spent more time in PixInsight than the total integration time just to get everything stitched up and ok looking 😆 The image might benefit from less stars, but StarNet2 would not play along. I am very pleased with the camera so far (especially considering the price)! Thanks for looking

Thanks Adam, how did you notice the primary mirror pinch? I can understand it in the post made on the 20th of August where the star shapes are off, but in the image from yesterday I cannot really see any odd shapes?

Finally had a chance to image for an hour with decent conditions. Collimated my scope last week, and the star shapes look way better than in the last image. Here is the result with perfect framing as you can see 5x300s HA, 5x300 OIII. GAIN: 0 in SGP, but the FITS file says 100, so not really sure. Binning 2x2. Had to crop it somewhat since I got some strange effects in one of the corners in my OIII stack, might need new flats. Just used the AutoIntegrate-script in PixInsight to do the processing for me As a comparison below is my last try in 2018 using my old CCD, think it was around 2-3 hours total integration on that one.

Thank guys for all your input, very insightful indeed! I went ahead and bought the Omegon veTEC 571 mono last week and managed to test it once, under quite bad conditions with high clouds. Attached is a single frame with only STF applied in PixInsight. I'm certainly no pro, but the vignetting seems manageable, I don't know about tilt though? The coma seems a bit worse than before, so might have to get a better coma corrector, will have to measure the remaining distance of the focus tube though since some of the better CCs are quite long.

Same here, but I ordered the mono version, it's due to arrive next week 🙂 I'm mostly worried about sensor tilt since I won't be able to add a tilt plate to my imaging train without getting a sensor distance of 57,5 mm from the Baader MPCC instead of the specified 55 mm. Might have to buy a thinner filter wheel if nothing else works. Not many swedes longing for October, but glad I'm not alone 😁

Thanks for the input! Sounds like a great sensor, how about with regards to my scope (pixel size, under/over sampling and vignetting). Also, will I need an IR/UV filter at the same time as my narrowband filters? The camera glass is AR coated.

Hi all! I've finally decided to upgrade my imaging setup. I'm currently using a StarlightXpress H-18 CCD. At first my plan was to get an ASI294mm, but now I'm leaning towards getting a camera with the IMX571-sensor instead, probably the Omegon veTEC 571 mono with the same price tag as the ASI294mm. The reason is mainly that I suspect that I will need to put more effort into processing (which I'm not very fond of) withe the 294. My question is: Will the sensor be a good fit for my Skywatcher Explorer 150p (FL 750mm), with a Baader CC MKII, StarlightXpress filter wheel with 36mm narrowband filters and a Moonlite focuser? The setup will be located under Bortle 4 skies. Cheers

Thank you for your detailed explanation ONIKKINEN! I'll put it up on my christmas wishlist 🙂 I downloaded CCD Inspector and it clearly shows my left-right tilt. I was gonna fix this issue tonight, but on my first image one half of the mechanical shutter got stuck and wouldn't operate, making half the image black 😭 I did however rotate the camera 180 degrees and took another picture and by eyeballing the focus of the stars it would seem that it is still the left side of the image that is out of focus. This would indicate sensor (or maybe focuser?) tilt and not telescope collimation issues if I'm not mistaken? Well, pleased with the fact that I now knew which screws to turn (due to the position of the malfunctioning shutter in the image) I gladly removed the camera and brought it indoors, just to realize that both shutters of course had closed upon disconnection of the camera. What a night... I did consider both incineration and trashcan for the whole setup, lol. I haven't tried taking a new image after taking the camera indoors, but the shutter probably just didn't like the cold, -14 degrees here tonight. Back to step one, either fixing the shutter or just putting it back on the scope and redo the rotation to verify the origin of the tilt, sigh

Good point, might as well be secondary or focuser tilt...I should have bought a refractor from the very beginning ☹️ Anyway, I have a Cheshire/sight tube, maybe that's the first step, but I find it really difficult to verify that the secondary is perfectly round in the sight tube. I can't even imagine how to make sure that the focuser is square, I'll have to resort to Google I guess 🙂 Great explanation, I'll give it a try after trying to make sure that the focuser is square and that the secondary is well aligned. I now remember that I made an artificial star some years ago, just need to find it 😃 And I'll also stop drizzling until I start my new career as a Hubble image processer at NASA 😃

Thanks for your input vlaiv, much appreciated! I image using my SXVR H-18 CCD with Baader NB filters. You are correct about drizzle, I followed the tutorials on Light Vortex, and they drizzle, therefore I drizzle 😁 When is it suitable to use drizzle? Regarding my 150p I replaced the stock focuser with one from Moonlite, so that should be fine. What about focus in the rest of the image? I run the autofocus routine with my motorized focuser in SGP before each session. How would I go about fixing, testing and measuring the tilt? I know my camera has collimation screws to adjust tilt, but which one should I adjust, and by how much? Do I need starry nights, or will flat frames suffice? Again, thank you for sharing your wisdom! 😃

Sooo, finally got around to processing my first target of the season. It's ~6 hours of HA data captured in central Stockholm. I like the capturing process and end result the most, so no heavy processing apart from DBE and a stretch. The Soul nebula doesn't fit in my FOV, so I framed the part I like the most I'll have to decide if I should do a mosaic or add OIII and SII data as well. I'm quite pleased with the result, except with the somewhat bloated stars and the star shapes bottom left. I guess the bloated stars might be due to poor guiding with my AVX-mount, my RMS is around 0.8, I'm not sure if this is good or bad with a pixel scale of 1.65? Any inputs on this? I blame my Coma Corrector, refractor collimation or CCD spacing for the elongated stars bottom left. Not sure how to fix this before my next imaging run...maybe by buying a refractor, lol. Any suggestions or pointers on how to improve are always welcomed! Thanks for looking!

Thank you very much for your thorough answer @MartinB, it means alot! I purposely made the background dark just to give it a more "realistic" look, but also trying to keep Alnitak at a minimum and being afraid of introducing too much noice. I guess you're right, 10 hours should be enough to give it a good stretch 🙂 Will definitely have another go with the processing trying different stretches, and also dive into the noice reduction section of Light Vortex and perhaps learn how to use masks. Great tip with the log tool, will have a look at that since I'm having some troubles with the Dec-guiding, where the calibration differs each time I run it. I suspect it's due to extensive backlash and I tried guiding Dec in one direction only, but if the calibration is bad so is the guiding I guess. Will try to have a look at the mount this off-season and see if anything can be done. Again, thanks for your great input! Heading over to FLO to do some window-shopping now, would love not having to do collimation and mirror cleaning each season 😂 /Patrik

I managed 4 more hours on NGC2024, totalling just over 10 hours. Also gave it a bit more love during post processing, but I think that someone more experienced would be able to produce a way better end result Maybe I stretched it a bit to far, looks too noisy for 10 hrs 🤪 I think this is about my limit under my Bortle 8 skies with my current equipment. Thanks for looking!

Wow, stunning image, theres so much going on in there! I can't see any insects at all though 😂 First time I've heard about RASA scopes, might have to look into them a bit further

As the imaging season is coming to an end for me I thought I´d share the two images I´ve been working on this winter. I still consider myself as a beginner, especially when it comes to processing, I´ve been following the Light Vortex tutorials for Pixinsight. As I live next to an airport in Stockholm it feels like I have everything working against my imaging, but I´m not giving up I have an Celestron AVX mount with a Skywatcher 150p, and an Starlight Express SXVR-H18 and some Baader NB filters. What do you all think would benefit my imaging the most, upping the mount, scope, camera or filters? The first one is a first draft of roughly 6 hours if HA data gathered on NGC 2024 (10 minute subframes), the Flame star nebula. It´s a difficult one, trying to contain the bright star. I´m hoping to get 4 more hours of light on this one. The one thing I´m not satisfied with is the star shapes, maybe I wasn´t selective enough when selecting subframes. Might be some high clouds or bad guiding on some of the frames. The second one is a classic, M42. Almost 10 hours of HA data (again 10 minute subframes, and some 30 second subframes for the core). Better star shapes on this one I think. I´m hoping to get some colour on this one next winter All constructive critisism is welcome /Patrik

Looking great! I tried ethernet over power cable for my obs, but had lots of trouble with network stability due to the fact that my router was not on the same circuit. I eventually had to drill a hole in a wall near the router and connect the obs with a good old network cable. My wife hasn't noticed the hole yet, and 3 weeks has passed, keeping my fingers crossed 😅 /Patrik

Wow, more snow than I've seen all year here Do you know the model name/number of the NUC? I have only found Intel NUCs with four (external) USB ports

I know, it's a bit overkill with all those com-ports, must be designed for indusrial use. I do like 8 usb-ports through. SSD is a very solid advice. Most computers are rated for operation above 5 degrees, but I don't think the cold (down to -10 degrees) is any problem, maybe humidity and dust.

Yes, but I think 8 gigs will suffice, it's only gonna be used for controlling all my gear running SGP and PHD

Thanks for the suggestion, I was thinking along those lines as well. The lid open around 110 degrees and comes to a rest leaning on my houses roof However I over-compensated while building the lid, so it weighs around 80 kg and I would probably need two acutators with a stroke length of around 120-130 centimeters 😅

Hi Now that my obs is finished I'm trying to make everything fully automated. There's two things left, opening/closing of the lid/roof and acquiring flats. I realized that I'm gonna need a better PC that can withstand the humidity/temperature 24/7. Does anyone have any suggestions? First of all I'm thinking small size (to be fitted on the scope to minimize flexure), fanless and lots of USB-ports so that I wont need a USB-hub. Something like this maybe? https://www.banggood.com/Eglobal-GK-Mini-Pc-I7-4500U-8G-RAM-128G256G512G-SSD-Wifi-DDR3-Windows-78910-Linux-1_8GHz-Fanless-Mini-Desktop-PC-p-1548691.html?ID=6270229&cur_warehouse=CN Here's a shot of my "box observatory" /Patrik

Lol, exactly. That cable snake pit needs some tidying up Your setup looks really nice. Also I need to get me a pair of those struts, where did you buy yours? How do you handle flat frames?

Scope in place and hooked up to the network! Managed to get some first light images of a random star field last night. All worked like a charm, and I just love being able to stay inside while imaging. The diy arduino focuser is also working great. Theres still some minor things left to do, but I'll get to that later