Budgie1

It's not fixed down yet as the concrete is still drying but I'll put some damp course between them when I do fix it in place permanently.

And we love struggling through the process for you. 🤣

I've been planning to build an obsy for about a year because it's just a pain (literally) dragging the mount, tripod, scope, laptop......... through the house to setup in the garden at the sniff of a clear night. I've been scrolling through this part of the forum seeing what others have done and settled on a ROR shed approach in the end. I first looked around for a shed which didn't look that hard to convert and came across a 6x8 Reverse Apex shed by Forest Garden, I would have liked to go with a tongue & groove built shed but that added too much money to the price, so this will do. Looking at the construction of the shed, the whole roof & pitched gable ends are separate from the walls, so this makes for an easy conversion (I hope). It also means I don't have an issue with the door being taller than the walls, like they are on most normal apex sheds. So that was the shed sorted and delivered, next was the pier. For this I copied the method and materials used by @Domain105 in THIS THREAD, only I decided to use three 16mm threaded bars, instead of four, to connect the two discs and it seems to be fine for stability. I started construction this week, marked out where the shed would be and orientated it so the rear of the shed was facing North. This means the pier is also facing towards the back wall but the orientation is mainly for the prevailing wind direction. We get a funnel effect with Southerly winds and this will hit the shed on the Southeast corner, meaning it will disperse either side of the shed and push the door & roof closed. It will also deflect the wind away from the greenhouse, which was blown down by 60 mph gusts about 3 years ago, just 2 days after I put it up! I had five 4" fence posts already, so used these to construct the shed base and decided to pour concrete footings, one at each corner, to level the base. First I dug the hole for the pier and made it 700mm square. Into this I put five 1.2m lengths of rebar for the pier tube and stood the tube on top of a couple of bricks stood on their end to raise the tube. With the thickness of the base + the shed floor, I didn't want the pier to be too short and not be able to get the scope high enough to see over the shed walls. With the assistance of a neighbours' mixer, I poured the pier base earlier this week and completed the shed footings on Friday. The pier is very solid at this height and you may notice that one of the footings is sightly out of position. This was a miscalculation on my part but it's level with the others, which is what counts. The shed base is now in position but not secured to the footings and I'm going to leave the concrete to go off before I start on the shed floor & walls. I still need to cut the hole in the floor for the pier and you'll see that I've placed the pier slightly to one end of the shed, just to give me more working room at the door end, where I intent to put the electrics and laptop etc. So here's where we are at the moment and I'll keep this thread updated as I progress.

If you have a powered USB3 hub at the mount then there's no need to power the active USB3 extension as well. There is enough power from the hub at the mount end & the PC/laptop at the other for it to work, that's how my 15m USB3 extension works. I have the mount in the garden and the laptop in the house. I run a 240v waterproof extension lead to the mount for power and the USB3 extension. I used to have a USB3 hub at the mount but this has been replaced with a Pegasus Power Box Advance, which connects the EQDIR, main camera, guide camera & ZWO EAF. Everything is sent back to the laptop by the 15m USB3 extension.

The UV/IR cut filter is good in your ASI533MC for reducing star bloat but won't enhance the contrast of Ha & Oiii because the pass band to way too large, so it also lets the LP bands through. Your main options if you want to try capturing narrow band with your OSC are: ZWO Duo-Band Optolong L-eNhance (Tri-Band which also covers the Hb emission range) Askar Duo-Band Altair Dual-Band 7nm CMOS Nebula Filter Optolong L-eXtreme IDAS NBZ Dual Band Nebula Boost I have both the L-eXtreme and Askar and they both work well with my ASI294MC. The L-eXtreme also blocks most of the emissions from planetary nebula, but is very good with emission nebula.

I use the 15m version of this USB 3 Active extension and it works fine, even when welded to the grass by frost in the winter. I take it the filter wheel and guide camera are connected to the USB ports on the ASI1600 and not into a USB hub on the mount? If so, then the extension will need to be powered and the power connections for this cable are in the middle or at the mount end.

If they're mono then you haven't told it to debayer the image. When you've loaded your lights, darks & flats, on the Calibration tab highlight the lights and make sure there's a tick in the CFA images box and the debayer method is VNG. Now go to the Post-Calibration tab and under "Configuration", DeBayer is set to Combined RGB and the Color Space is reading "RGB"

I use both. If I want a quick stack to see what I've got so far then I use DSS but use PI's WBPP for the full stacking process. For the banding, I did use the CanonBandingReduction script in PI, you can find it under Scripts > Utilities. This dealt with the horizontal banding, but not the vertical. Although I'm not 100% sure the vertical banding is caused by the camera because they're not regular like the horizontal ones, they may be gradients or sorted with the calibration frames.

I managed to drag out more of the nebula with PixInsight, but as Simon says, the use of flats, dark flats & Bias calibration frames will help reduce the gradients. A dual-band filter will also bring out much more of the Ha & Oiii signal in this particular nebula. With more time I could reduce the green/brown gradients. I also reduced & sharpened the stars to show more nebula. How do these compare with what you managed?

There has to be something not right with the acquisition or the filter. Not only is the Oiii very weak, the Ha is a lot less than I would expect from the L-eXtreme filter on the ASI533MC with that sort of integration time. What gain & offset settings where you using and what was the sub exposure times? Also, is it likely the Moon or any LP has affected the subs? As an example, below is a very rough 2h25m process of the Spaghetti Nebula I took back in March using Samyang 135mm at F2.8 with the ASI294MC Pro and L-eXtreme filter. I also abandoned this project as the flats didn't work (I now know why - gain setting) and I haven't had enough clear skies this year to give this target the time it needs, but I wanted to show the amount of Ha this setup has captured with such a short integration time.

Have you tried the other couplers, to see if there's one which is a closer fit on the shaft? Make sure to wind the grub screws out so you can't see them inside the hole for the shaft. There's also quite a bit of adjustment on the EAF motor bracket, so can you fit the coupler so it's far enough out to clear the casing?

When I fitted the EAF to my ED80 DS Pro, I didn't have any issues. I've just checked the focuser (I changed it for the upgraded version) and the shaft sticks out 7mm from the black focuser casing, so yours looks about right. One thing to check is that you haven't got the coupler the wrong way round. The centre hole has two different sizes in it, one for the scope side and one for the EAF, which is larger. If you put the EAF side onto the focuser shaft and tighten the grub screws then this can push the coupler off centre and it can rub the casing. You also won't be able to get the EAF onto the coupler.

Oops, I was flicking between the two and must have use the wrong one, now corrected. My EQ5 is well over 12 years old and works fine with the RJ45 version, I only got the cable a few months ago to replace the original, which I cut down to use on my HEQ5. @LaurenceT, you can still use the ST4 method to connect the mount to the ASIAir, it just means you'll have another cable to worry about.

Looking on the FLO website, the EQDIR for the AZ GTi is different to the one for the EQ5. It looks like the AZ GTi has the RJ11 connection, where as the EQ5 version has the larger RJ45. The only time you would use the "Autoguider" connection on the EQ5's control box is when you're connecting the ST4 cable directly between the mount & the camera, then the mount would have to be set to "On Camera" in the ASIAir. You would also still need the USB cable connection from the camera to the ASIAir as well. Looks like you need another EQDIR cable, unless your mount has one of the newer hand controllers with the USB port on the bottom.

My EQDIR cable has the USB end connected to one of the USB2 ports on the ASIAir Plus, the RJ45 end is plugged into the port where the hand controller normally goes on the EQ5. The EQDIR cable replaces the Synscan hand controller.

I have the EQ5 and the ASIAir Plus and I've just fired them up to check the settings on the ASIAir App. Mount: EQMod Mount - switch to the right of the mount type is ON Serial = Connected Baud = 9600 I don't have anything else connected to the ASIAir Plus but I can move the mount using the up-down-left-right buttons on the main screen, so it's definitely connected & works.

If you're going to get either the ASI533MC Pro or ASI294MC Pro then both of these have a built-in USB hub on the back with two USB2 ports. So you can utilise these by connecting your guide camera and mount connection into them. Then you only need the one USB3 cable from the ASI533/294 to the laptop. This makes cable management on the mount easier and doesn't fill up all the USB ports on your laptop. If you have a USB3 port on the laptop then definitely use it for the ASI533/294 because the image download speed from the camera to the laptop is so much faster.

If you're worried about dew with a mains extension then a waterproof extension or normal extension lead into a Dri-Box should do the trick.

What about a filter draw and a L-eNhance or L-eXtreme filter or maybe another scope to give you a different FOV?

Basically, EQMOD allows your laptop, mount, APT/NINA & PHD2 to talk to each other. Here's the link for more reading: http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/ To be honest, if I were just starting out with astrophotography again then I would want to use the ASIAir because it's an all-in-one setup. It's straight forward to use and has everything you need from polar alignment, plate solving, imaging and guiding. You only need to power it with one feed and it will power & connect to your camera, guide camera & mount (although, with the EQ6-R Pro you may need to power it separately due to it power draw). And I'm saying this as someone who started with a laptop, got the ASIAir and still use the laptop as my main form of running my main rig. It makes things easier to get yourself the EQDIR cable to connect the mount to the ASIAir or laptop, you won't be using the hand controller whether you go for the ASIAir, APT or NINA as they will all (including PHD2) communicate direct with the mount. If you go the laptop route then a USB hub of some kind will be needed on the mount to connect the guide camera, main camera and mount too, meaning you only have one USB lead going from the mount to the laptop. This means less chance of snagging. You don't mention what you plan to use as your main imaging camera but a USB3 hub would be the best thing to go for, although this may limit how far away from the mount your laptop is situated, unless you use an active USB3 extension.

Thanks Jim, I'll be doing the same and take a new set of subs this year. The one's above were taken with my modified Canon EOS 1300D, so it'll be interesting to see what I can get with the ASI294MC Pro and, as there's quite a bit of darker dust in that region, I'll use the Evostar ED80 DS Pro this time to get a wider FOV. Give me a shout if you're needing any pointers with PI, always happy to help.

I left a bit of green in there, but took 80% out with SCNR late in the processing.

Your ASI294MC Pro should come with all the spacers you'll need for the standard 55mm back focus. There's an 11mm spacer which normally screws directly on to the front of the camera and there's also a 1.25" filter adaptor included which screws inside the 11mm spacer to take your UV/IR cut filter. This makes sure the 1.25" filter is as close to the sensor as possible to prevent any vignetting from the filter. When choosing a UV/IR cut filter, I would advise going for a mid-priced one, rather than a cheaper one. There's no point spending £1k on a camera and putting a low quality filter right in front of it. If you think you may go for a dual-band filter further down the line or you need to use LP filters, you can get a Filter Draw to replace the 21mm spacer in the image train. This means you don't have to unscrew the camera from the scope to change the filter. The only drawback is the filter draw takes 2" filters, instead of 1.25". So have a think about what you may want to do now, as it could save you having to replace your filters later. The only other thing I'd advise with ASI294MC Pro is to make sure you have a good quality UBS3 cable. The supplied cables are okay, but some have had connection drop-out issues with them. The gradients are caused by using a dual-band filter with unity gain (120). If you use a gain of 200 or above and offset of 30 then the flats work fine & calibrate this out. The flat problems when using just the UV/IR cut filter are normally because the flats were too short in exposure length. Aim for something like 26,000 ADU with 1-1.5 sec exposure and they should be fine. I also found that Bias calibration frames left a remnant of amp-glow, so I don't use them.

If you decide you need the rotator linked above, make sure to check that it will fit where you want it too. This rotator normally screws directly onto the standard Sky Watcher focuser draw tube and the reducer/flattener then screws onto the rotator. This configuration won't work with your Starlight focuser so it will have to be located somewhere else in the train.

Mid-Summer is a No-Go for imaging at my latitude because there's just too much light in the sky. So I spend my time processing stacks from other SGL members who kindly post them on here for the likes of me to play with, and re-processing my own past images. Tonight I though I would re-visit NGC7023, The Iris Nebula. I took the images back in December 2020 (my original thread is HERE) and there was just over 5 hours worth of Subs. When I last processed this image, I hadn't had PixInsight that long and was still very much on the learning curve with this software and tried a few different things with it at the time. 18 months later and I'm still learning PI, but I have a much better understanding of how it works and I have a workflow which, I feel, produces good results. Some processes have made life much easier since I first worked on this image, NoiseXTerminator and StarXTerminator are two, but mainly is my use of Curves and more ability to drag out that finer detail. And that's mainly what this thread is about, showing that as you get more experience with your processing software (no matter which one you use), the more you realise just how much detail you originally got in your data. So, here's the before & after images. This is the best processing I originally got from the data using PI and I was pleased with the results at the time: And this is the exact same data, only re-stacked (using DSS) & re-processed this evening. Notice how much extra dust is now visible in the image, the dust was always there, I just didn't know how to bring it all out. I feel the stars are also more controlled, have added colour and are less dominant in this version, allowing the nebula to be the focus of the image. I know not everyone likes the processing side of the hobby and some find it really difficult to get to grips with. I just hope that this gives some encouragement and shows that, with time, your processing skills will & do improve so you can get the most out the data you've collected. If it's a cloudy night, revisit you old data and just see what you can make of it now, you may be surprised!