DaveS

And now I cannot login to my wickes account, for no reason that I can see .

Thanks both. Been learning a lot through this project, mainly about how NOT to build an obsy lol, especially about roof timbers. The ones I've put in are too light, causing a sag which can be seen by reference to the straight edge of the lip over the roof. When I come to build the imaging box around my platform rig I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing, especially WRT the roof. When I have the imaging box up and running I'll have another think about the obsy roof and may reconstruct it using heavier gauge timber. There are also a lot of out of square elements, including the roof rails. Although they are parallel to each other they are out of square WRT the obsy walls, which are square to each other.. Argh! And I thought I was taking great care to get everything squared up with a builder's square and level. too tight-fisted to buy a laser level / square. The four corner posts are also a little out of plumb, but no way am I going to take everything that far back to correct them. They'll "have to do".

Thought it was time for another photo. Still have to do the west side of the roof, plus some cladding on the south and east sides. Then the EPDM will go on and be glued to the cladding with the mastic supplied with the kit.

Been fiddle-faddling around today. Managed to cut a piece of OSB to fit the gap in the roof and layed some exterior cladding on. Been a lot of up-down ladder, measure, up-down ladder, cut, up-down ladder screw down, etc, etc till my back hurts. Strengthened the four hold-down toggles ready for the high winds forecast. Now to work out what I need from Wickes to make up the exterior bits.

Here is my preliminary effort using a Green / Gold palette Flipping between AstroArt 7 and Affinity Photo. Think I may have to bite the bullet and fork out for PI. Unfortunately my trial has long since ended so will have to get the full license come what may.

OK, thanks. Downloaded now, will have a play in AstroArt and Affinity.

Thanks Grant. It did look very much as though it saw the file as txt and downloaded it as such I right clicked and looked for a "save target as" but no luck. Will try your suggestion.

I must be doing something stupid, as when I click on the .fit links I get a FITS header, followed by what looks like a PI process history, followed by random characters, with nothing looking like something I can download into a folder for processing.

Now have 7 sections of board on, but as I half expected, although the offcuts would fill the remaining section they individually just come up short to reach across the battens. I think I may well use the piece of 9mm OSB to fill in the gap, .

Put three of the boards on the roof, but having to sort out work-arounds for the out-of-square errors that have emerged from the very foundations. Saw a huge bank of rain on the radar, and playing the animation shows it coming this way. Grabbed the rest of the boards, plus another that I had laying around and overlapped them on the roof. Will see how well I've shielded the membrane underneath.

Great talk though, and very informative.

I was scared of PI before the talk, now I'm terrified!

A nice warm, well lit control room with Remote Desktop connection to the two imaging rigs.

The muppet went out with a mop and bucket and mopped a bucket's worth of water off the obsy floor which is now merely wet rather than flooded. Had a go at fixing some more gaps in the tape and put a temporary ledge about the roof / wall opening. If I had enough membrane spare I'd redo the entire roof, taking more care over getting the membrane tight and making sure the seams are well stuck down.

Flooded again. Job for mop and bucket, or muppet more like. Waiting for the rain to stop for long enough.

Wickes customer service was brilliant. Order updated, van has just been, collected the wrong board and dropped off the correct board.

A quick update. Been "fiddling" in the obsy, filling in odd shaped gaps. also been in contact with the Wickes customer service team, upshot is they will collect the 4 8' x 4' bits of OSB they sent in error, and deliver the 7 (3 more than I thought I'd need) 4' x 2' bits that will be a lot easier for me to get into position. I have Decorator's Caulk for filling in the joins. When the roofer came, I saw in his va T&G OSB sheeting which I then remembered him using for a roofing job here, and which I hadn't seen on Wickes. TBH, after the trials I had with the T&G cladding I doubt I could have fitted it properly. Or at all for that matter.

Answered YES, as the last few holidays were timed with the moon, and for fairly dark locations. Even more importantly, when I moved house the Light Pollution map was as important as the Right Move map. Now my location is at least as dark as the places I went on holiday to.

Had my roofer here to fix the front downpipe that had come loose from the guttering. He cast his eye over the obsy, his verdict "That's a proper job". So at least one vote of confidence.

No, at the mo it's just damp in the air As I'm finding out, the hard way lol. Just had another two deliveries from Wickes, OSB (Too big, contacted customer services, but could use it) and a small circular saw for cutting up board.

Thanks Nigella. Although I drew up plans before I started, it's the fiddly bits that are taking time, plus the learning curve of finding out what I don't know about building an obsy. Hopefully when I come to build an automated imaging box for the little 'scope I will know what I'm doing. Haha.

Well, the floor of the obsy is mostly dry, so I've been doing a bit more work. Just taken delivery of some OSB from Wickes. Instead of the 606 x 1220mm that I'd ordered, they sent me 1220 x 2400mm. OK, I can use it but humping 4' x 8' lengths onto the roof will test my (non) abilities. Also I only paid for the short lengths. Sent a request for clarification to customer services, bu more delay while they reply.

The tropical storm arrived and promptly flooded the obsy from insufficiently taped seams of the membrane. I'd made such a pig's ear of my previous efforts that i imagined that I could "get away" with not taping them. After being proved wrong a couple of days ago | thought I'd got them taped but was wrong. Think I've got the seams tight now, but the next storm will tell. Good job I didn't take the TG cover off.

Just slapped a load of Creocote on the north wall cladding. Will probably induce a tropical storm.

Just a note: the SA has a guiding port for ST4, but it only guides in RA, so your PA still has to be pretty good.