scitmon

From what I have read it helps the cladding to dry and prevents trapped moisture...

Sorry I should have written it clearer. I meant is the airgap wide enough (you said yes 👍) and will the airgap also need ventilating? I will also be planning to ventilate the shed with some louvre vents.

I have ordered some foil back PIR boards and plywood for the job. Question for people in the know... I already have a breathable membrane on the inside face of the cladding. The thickness of my Framing (65mm) and the thickness of my PIR boards ordered (40mm) will leave a 15mm airgap between the cladding and insulation... Is that sufficient and does it need ventilating?

Thank you for the input. When reading about insulation of ceilings it seems i need to consider warmer air condensing on the cold ceilings. Its all confusing with “warm” and “cold” roofs. If i just fix PIR board to the ceiling between the rafters and don’t clad it will that be ok?

I have recently took delivery of my new "workshop grade" shed. I plan to start storing my setups in it for the convenience of just wheeling it out and away I go. Before I start doing this I've been thinking of insulating and cladding the inside walls (along with some vents) to stop the contents baking in summer and freezing in winter. Is this generally considered a good idea? Is insulating the ceiling aswell a good idea?

This is terrible timing for me who was about to purchase it for the winter. Is it too late to buy without subscription? The only reason I switched from APT was to get the automated refocusing (in the schedule plan).

7 min subs in Bortle 8 with a DSLR!? no filters used? I would have thought you would get massive over-saturation at that length?

wait for the 2600 mono which is highly suspected to be out this year...

this possibly?

If you mean in terms of field of view, then this site can help you with that: http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ Select imaging mode tab, use "custom scope" then adjust the focal length field accordingly. The canon 2000d isn't an option either, but if you select the 1000d which will have the same chip size that will give you an accurate representation. Here is what M31 would look like at 300mm: That is how it would be framed, but in terms of detail etc, that depends on your exposure length and how many images you stack together.

What kind of glitches are you getting? I would have thought that a belt modded NEQ6 would be a very competent mount.

You could have dedicated scopes for both deep sky and planets if you wanted, it depends on preferences. For example you could get a Schmidt-Cassegrain for planets and a Refractor/Reflector that gives you a wide field view for Deep Sky. I think there is more info needed from you: Do you need a mount? Do you want a tracking mount? Is portability something you need to consider?

I think the build quality issues where more down to insufficient packaging, and they got damaged during delivery. That may have been resolved now?

The Location in your app looks wrong (lat long puts you in China!), I would suggest a manual input of location.

How about a StellaMira 104? or is that aperture too small?

Some mounts are capable of running in both EQ and AltAz mode. For the purposes on Astrophotography you will only need to use EQ mode. If you have issues seeing Polaris I think your best bet is hooking your camera up to a laptop and using a drift alignment tool. Hopefully someone with more experience with that can comment on the best tools.

With long focal length telescopes such as yours, the quality of the eye piece is less important so I wouldn't overdo it price wise. I have ES eyepieces and they are very nice, but what might be a good option is a variable zoom eyepiece like https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-planetarium/baader-hyperion-zoom-eyepiece.html

Can I ask what is that arm that secures the pillar on your trolley? I like this setup and want to copy it

I agree it's oversaturated, but with the light pollution conditions you describe this is an excellent result!

AZ mounts do not require polar alignment because they are not designed to follow the Earth's rotation. There are no EQ mounts that you can just tell to polar align and it does it for you, but there are cameras you can attach to your mount such as the iOptron iPolar which (when paired with a computer) make it easier to get a more precise polar alignment. But this is overkill unless you are doing astrophotgraphy? If you are just visual get a GOTO AZ mount, or use the polar scope on a EQ mount to get it roughly right and thats all you need.

If you are looking to buy for just astrophotography, I would also consider buying a dedicated astro camera. While DSLR's offer good value for money in terms of pixels per £, they also come with poor noise control. Worth looking into and deciding what you want.

I completely agree with your views on the Warren Keller book, I have higher hopes for http://www.deepskycolors.com/mastering-pixinsight.html when it's out. For me, it's just practice and youtube I have learn't the most from. Patience, practice and persevearence has been the key, and I still have a long way to go.

I've never actaully tried planetary photography so I don't feel qualified to answer this, but in theory, to me it sounds easier to get into. @Carbon Brush 's idea about using a smartphone is an excellent idea, you can buy phone mounts that clamp on to your eye piece so that might be worth looking into. You might also want to conside that planets can go long periods below the horizon, but the moon is around a lot more. Observing DSO's in heavy light pollution might be very problomatic. I would have a read of this thread to manage your expectations. Capturing DSO's is narrowband might be the way to go if you pursue that route, but it's expensive.

Photographing planets and DSO's involve very different capture techniques. The best way to capture planets is with a long focal length telescope, such as the c5, with a camera that can take as many frames as possible per scond. Then using software, you pick out the clearest frames to stack together to produce your image, hence having a high framerate camera being advatageous to get more clear images. Photographing DSO's is a lot different. You need to track your target accurately with an equatorial mount, use a camera to take long exposure photographs (which damands accurate tracking or you will get star trails). This is where a wide field, low focal length telescope such as the z61 would come in, which puts less demands on the tracking acurracy. I would suggest you think about which you want to focus on more and pursue that. If you want to go down the DSO route, reading the book "Making Every Photon Count" before spending significant money is wise.

Nice image. I'm curious how you get a Hubble Pallete from a OSC? Did you do this in post processing?