blinky

yeah, I would not worry about, be happy you got a half price scope!  I doubt even if you pixel peep, if you would be able to tell

Now with that I have a theory.....  We are taking guide images of say 2 seconds, so the seeing is smoothed out and all we are left with is guide errors - which might actually answer my last question as to why we want to guide as low as possible!

What I always wonder though - as the op says, in the UK we usually get around 2arcseconds of seeing, so are we actually gaining anything by guiding at something like 0.5?

Its easy - you go to the resources tab (im at work typing on my works laptop so doing this from memory) then you should see something about managing repositories, you open that, click add then paste in the repository locaiton.  After that, click the look for updates or whatever its called, it will then download them, ask you to close Pixinsight to allow them to install and thats it

Sorted!  Had to click the reset updates button then restart PI and it downloaded everything again and it now shows

If I go to view updates it seems to show it as installed but I cannot find the process...

Anyone got any ideas?  Ive added 2 repositories from here: https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/  the NBColorMapper and NarrowbandNormalisation, 

I then do a check for updates but the tools dont appear,  is it something to do with the latest version of Pixinsight?

So.... Took everything apart again tonight - when it fell over the OAG came apart, in inspection tonight, there is a 1mm or so burr of metal that just pinged off.  Put it all back together and it seem to be performing as well as before.  Time will tell, only did a few test images and looked at the corners bit it seems a lot better

I don't know how you do that?

At the weekend my WO ZS73 blew over, was mounted on an heq5, wind came out if nowhere as it was a decent day otherwise!

Anyway, it all seemed OK but on examination of stars that night, I seem to have very elongated stars at one side of the image.  I'm wondering if it's possible to contact somebody like ES Reid and have them take a look at it?

OAG would be my choice - I swapped from guide scope ages ago and once focussed (which can be tricky as you may not get round stars, so finding focus is difficult) its lighter, easier to balance, and in theory since its the same focal length as your imaging scope, should give better results

So progress report......  Removed the old decking boards to discover that when building the original frame, we took a shortcut and just dug trenches in the grass and now its all just a big waterlogged mess!  The old grass/soil is up against the wood and it will start to rot.  So today Ive dug out 20 rubble sacks of the old mud/grass/clay mix to give an air gap, thats the first half done, need to do the other side at the weekend 😞

16" centre and T&G Shiplap - right, thats what I was wondering, will do mine the same

Just discovered tonight that I need to relocate or rather remove and build a new pier 😞 i want to make the obs half or as near to as I can, the size of the deck.  When I looked tonight, the current pier is going to be pretty much on the back wall.....

8 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

On the exterior wood protection. My 2007 build shiplap shed based observatory still has good walls.
Tanalised (treated) wood was used. Since then I have been out with the cuprinol a few times.

When assembling, be generous with the cuprinol (or whatever) on areas you can't get to afterwards.
For example shiplap that is fastened to a batten. Or timber that is at the bottom.

The pent roof needed quite a bit of additional timber. If starting again I would make a frame non-flat roof for rigidity.

The original floor joists rotted about 10 years in. They were sitting on the concrete base.
I replaced them by pressure treated 3" fence posts. Jacking the shed to avoid having to remove the contents & dismantle.
Ask me in a few years how they have lasted. But I can jack it again.

Like you I used a garage door opener. Excellent choice😁.
The roof covering is pond liner - not roofing felt. Still good 2007 - 2023.

While building consider putting thin vertical wires in the walls. Eventually linked to your alarm.
When Burglar Bill tries to pry off planks to gain entry a wire breaks and you get lights and bells.
Other security arrangements can be made later in the build.

Following with interest.

David.

I would have thought a pent roof needed way less timber?

1 hour ago, iapa said:

I’m thinking that the gap between fence and obs could be minimise by using that space for pollinator friendly wild flowers - minimal effort required.

That’s my position for my dome - between fence and base is wild flowers

The base is a decking area so no room to plant anything

Just measured - the obsy will be 2.6 x 2m - the decking is 3.3m long by 3m wide.  So 2m wide should give me space to get round it and 2.6m seems a standard length of cladding - edit, 3.6m is the standard length!  I assume I can reuse the 1m offcuts

So Ive now sold my skyshed and am ready to embark on my own build of a roll off roof obsy:-)  Some info to get started before the questions!

• Im planning a pent roof, I figure this is easier to construct - pretty much thinking that one side, I will add an extra length of wood to raise that side up
• At this stage im not planning on insulating or having a warm room 
• Im planning to motorise the roof with a garage door opener and having it sliding on gate track with rollers/wheels

My first question is around insulation, do I ned damp proof membranes or vapour barriers?  I think Im going to have either shiplap/tounge&Groove or buy some plastic cladding.  If I do need membrane, do I secure this to the outside of the wall batons, then secure the cladding directly over the top of the membrane?  Does this cause problems as there is no air gap between the membrane and the cladding?

Cladding - what do people recommend?  I want it to look nice, be watertight but dont want to spend a fortune (hence building it myself).  My last obsy was tongue & groove and after a few months is all started to come apart at the joints and water started to come in but that was maybe the joiner I hired used crap wood!  Is it easy to install/cut etc plastic cladding?

I think this might take a few months to build but I will endeavour to keep this thread up to date - FYI here is the existing SkyShed and base that the new obsy will be going on:

I have an ASI 1600 mono and got the full well capacity and read noise from ZWO website, does it seem correct that my best exposure is around 1.7 seconds?

See the screenshot, I think I've enabled everything but Hocus Focus is not annotating the starts with the HFR data, what have I done wrong?

ok, could have sworn i zoomed in before and it didnt show them but it is now!

I cannot for the life of me get Starry Night to show the labels for objects!  Ive found an article that said to go to options, deep sky, show labels which I have done but as you can see from the screenshot it wont show the Leo Triplet, what do I need to do?

Hi,

I got 4 hours on LDN1586 in Ha and really like what I have - so much so that I went back to get some RGB data for the stars with the intention of adding the 2 together.  Im a bit stumped though!  At this point in still in the Linear stage - I combined the RGB, did DBE and Colour Correction, then Blur and Noise X Terminator.  Then I extracted the Red channel, linear matched by Ha to the Red channel and did a combine with Pixel Maths but the result is rubbish!  Is there a better formula than 0.75XRed + 0.25XHa that I can use?  I think I want something like if the Ha is brighter than Red then take its value, else take the Red channel value.  Just noticed I have some colour casts in RGB but I think this is 'cos I'm stretching it so much to make it match the Ha data - wonder if I remove the stars from the Ha data, extract the red channel and remove everything but the stars from Red then add Ha and Red together then bring that back into the RGB image?

Running Man Nebula - wanted to do this for a long time since its always playing second fiddle to the Orion Nebula

ASI 1600 Mono with ASI LRGB filters, Altair F4 Newt

Oh, thanks Olly - just installed both trials to see if they worked, now need to find $150 to buy them as they are so good!