DaveS

Looking forward to seeing the result.

I find point stars harder to see to low brightness than extended sources. From my location the Milky Way is quite bright and structured, even the winter Milky Way is well defined, yet my limiting mag is well short of what it should be.

I'm looking at it on a 4k wide gamut calibrated monitor and although it's noisy (Bound to be with only 6 hours data) there's loads of detail there. I've certainly seen worse from 6 hours data.

WOW! Only 6 hours on a target of notably low surface brightness, or is that 6 hour per camera? In either case it's amazing.

Ooh, that's lovely. I have this one on my hit list as a possible First Light for the ODK12, just hope I get it commissioned before we lose Galaxy Season for this year. Have you thought about some H-alpha? I reckon there's enough HII regions for it to pick them up.

ATM I'm hoping the cladding will hold it square, but I am also thinking about placing some diagonal pieces in the framing.

OK, another update. The computer box installed and cabled up And everything covered in case the weather turns.

Yep, half botanical garden restoration and half archeological dig. Been cutting out masses of tangled overgrowth, and finding lost paths buried beneath plants / soil.

An ornamental Crab is certainly a possibility, just got to work out where to put it, but there are several locations. Unfortunately my soil is far too alkaline for blueberries, down here in Dorset there's a lot of chalk / limestone around. The soft fruit area currently has some raspberry canes and three blackcurrant bushes plus a few alpine / wild strawberries. I also hope to make room for a tayberry on wires. Scattered around the garden are four gooseberry bushes though I'm not all that keen, especially given the spines.

Having got the measure of the ground freed up by removing the tree, and after the gardeners have been at it, I reckon I can accomodate 6-8 "Supercolumn" apple / pear trees and two or three semi-dwarf plum / gages in that area, plus a couple of hazels for nuts further down. There's a large area cleared for soft fruit. Plus another bed that I can use for veg, in amongst some ornamentals.

That's brilliant. I've always considered Thor's Helmet to be a target that's not really doable from here but you've nailed it. Not sure there's enough clear nights here to get that length of integration. May look at it next year,, if we ever get some clear nights.

Optician, now. PDQ.

Ha, yes we managed quite a reasonable day, the gardeners have been able to crack on. Renovating this garden is looking like a cross between "Lost Gardens of Heligan" and "Time Team" lol (Not sure if the references will make sense on the other side of the pond). Not long after I covered the mount the rain arrived, so I was just in time. Weather forecasts for next week are looking more hopeful with high pressure coming in. It'll make a change.

Thanks, but it doesn't matter how good your 'scope is if it's constantly clouded out . Hope we get some clear nights to be able to use the damn thing.

Thanks, yes that mount really is a beast, built like a tank. 85mm dia axes and the counterweight shaft is 60mm dia stainless steel. Just in case anyone was concerned that I might leave a £12k mount to get rained on, I dropped a big TG cover over it.

I've not updated for a while, mainly because I wasn't able to get on, with the rubbish weather. However, I've had contractors in blitzing my garden so a couple of them helped me get the pier up and onto the platform and bolted down. They also helped me with getting the DDM85 on the pier, in two parts. Their help was especially appreciated yesterday when I lost my balance while lifting the RA section and went sprawling, hitting several parts of my anatomy against the framing. Fortunately nothing was damaged though II now have a multitude of aches. Because some of the 8 anchor bolts were a little off vertical I had to apply the Mechanics' Motto* in order to get the pier to settle on to all the pads prepared for it. The pier is 1 metre high, the walls are 1.59 metres. I am currently constructing a box for the computer which will be fitted to the lower noggin in the middle of the east wall. Unfortunately my sparks is unwell so has had to put back his visit for a week or two, but the 4 double outlets will go in the plank that has the cable wrapped around it. * "When in doubt, use a bigger hammer".

Under really dark skies the milky way can (Supposedly) significantly lower the SQI.

For narrow band, yes, and perhaps even for the red channel if not too far from astro dark. From mid May to mid July, nautical dark is all we have, and not a lot of that either . Not helped by British Stupid Time.

Until ASA get off their butts and deliver the platform independent software they've been promising I'm pretty well stuck with Win-Dross unfortunately. At least with Win10 Pro I can schedule a time when it doesn't update, this is set for normal imaging time, The only problem is Micro-$-Oft's tendency to stuff up their updates, leading to stuffed up end-users' computers. This has happened a couple of times with me leading to borked drivers. ASA DDM mounts are so damn good that I'm prepared to put up with Micro-$-Oft and Win-Dross. The software, while a bit graunchy and cantankerous does everything I need, and more.

Nothing tonight, and don't know about tomorrow. May only be housekeeping and calibration.

This may sound daft, but.... I'm not sure that I would want to go on holiday to a *really* dark site. Let me explain. When I lived in Ruislip I *knew* that my skies were rubbish so going on holiday to a dark site didn't make me too dissatisfied with my home there, especially as I was intending to move. However, now I'm living in a reasonably dark site, going to a dark, dark site *would* make me dissatisfied and possibly unhappy. Illogical? Possibly, but now if I go on holiday I won't be considering how dark the skies are, or if it's the dark of the moon.

Yep, me too. Been to La Palma and the west coast is pretty dark, though I think my location will give it a run for its money unless you're on the caldera.

A second 28" 4k monitor for the control room, plus refurbished Lenovo laptop, 12V 50W PSU for the obsy and some shelf brackets. Running two independent rigs is getting expensive, lol

Yesterday morning to early afternoon it was chucking it down so much that there was standing or pooling water on the road outside my house, something almost unheard of.