powerlord

It's not resting on the outriggers, it is clamped to the outriggers via opposing bearings. basically, you could lift the shed by the roof with the roof open if it wasn't bolted to the concrete base. Hopefully pics make clear? It's why the outriggers can be really short. I'll leave them just now as it means I can roll roof sections way beyond shed, and don't want to cut em only to find when I finally get piers and mounts in, an extra few inches would have meant more visibility.. But once all that done, chances are they can be reduced to only be extending about 30cm rather than the 60 or so. But on Carole's point, with th concrete base, they are all higher than my head. I'll stick padding on door lintel once all done for sure. Once in, I clear all the beams, helped by the fact my roof mechanism raised the roof an inch. Both sides done now, running smooth. Put sealant rubber between half's, and just working on ridge mechanism now. Got Monday off, so 3 clear days to crack on.. Famous last words.. But maybe I'd I write goals down here the pressure will help make it happen... I wanna finish roof totally (minus automation) tomorrow. Saturday, fitting insulation. Sunday and Monday - floor and piers. 🤞🤞🤞 Meanwhile in the lab, electronics, control buttons, remote, etc are all progressing on the bench so can be developed and tested separately. I've got a 4 button box on a cable which feeds into the esp32. Interrupts on the button inputs trigger functions : Button 1:open/stop/close roof (ie if its moving, a press will stop it for emergencies otherwise one press will open, or if open, close) Button 2: open/close door Button 3: lights on/off Button 4: mount (and asiair, cameras, etc) power on/off And I've got a remote control with 4 buttons does the same thing. Also those 4 functions are APis And setup so I can ask alexa to do em. Here's a question: Air can escape around the roof which is good for letting hot air out in summer, etc. At base of walls just now, there are gaps at bottom of panels. Above base so not a water risk.. More thinking of ants, etc.. One the one hand, could leave and it might aid air circulation, making cool air come in base, out top. On the other hand, sealing all around may keep it less humid, and puts the control on where cooler air comes in to my hands - might later add low level input fan like I did with obsy mk1. Thoughts?

No, they are always crouching down looking at the ground, to check they don't stand in one of skye's poos. 🤣 Believe me the low door height of the shed is far more dangerous.. I've already bashed my head on it 3 times. 🤯

Finally! Happy with this. Needs some tweaking to run smooth and the outside bars will be cut to about 20230223_142741_1_1.mp4 the current size, so not long at all.

warning - you will have to put up with the incredibly annoying american 'go ahead' superfluous word spew that many insist on inserting every second word. or as they would say 'you will have to go ahead and put up with the superfluous word spew that I insist on going ahead with and inserting every second word' This is the S22, but looking at stars doesn't look like it does any alignment as can see star trails. oh well. still good for a smart phone I suppose.

Yeh it just felt.. Clunky. I did first take which took days, stood back and thought I'm just not happy with it - all brackets and bearings and just looked amateurish. So I tore it all down and tried a different design, which was that. It was cleaner, and tbh worked fine but still felt a bit naff. Just not good enough. Plus, as I say, practicalities of stuff like the door still having to open ended up making the rotation off no lower than a roll off, and would be more difficult to automate. So.. Tore it all down again, and am now trying an old school roll off with a twist. So far so good, but unlike prior attempts this one will need slots cut in the roof to test it.. And I'm loath to cut slots into roof only to find that also is not satisfactory.. On the other hand I am now seeing roofs and brackets in my sleep, while waking the dog, while working..... and this just needs to be getting DONE. Argggggg Raining today. Tomorrow, angle grinder time. My main take away so far for others is, though you are not assembling the roof as part of the shed, DO assemble the roof ON the shed. Otherwise you find that your roof sections are not quite straight with shed roof walls later and it's a lot harder sorting it once it's all built...

I'd be interested in seeing some piccies taken with the new Samsung.. Looks like it can do some sort of alignment/stacking? https://www.trustedreviews.com/how-to/how-to-shoot-stars-with-the-samsung-galaxy-s23-ultra-4303933

Progress slow. Had to change approach to roof a few times. It's roughly working now, but I'm beginning to realise I'm gaining very little from the complexity.. The roof ends up just about as high over the side wall as if I'd just done a horizontal roll off.. And it's so light that all that would need is to extend extruded Ali out each side to do that... I'm wrestling with the sunk cost fallacy here I think. 20230221_082433_1.mp4

lovely. best I've seen.

Most important bit done... Naming..

LlA quick update: waiting on more extruded aluminium to strengthen various bits, so in the meantime: - I completed the stregthening of the roof at the weekend, reqworking the edges of the roof with metal bending tools so it now bows out and acts like a 'hat' for the whole observatory. - I removed the doors and replaced the rubbish plastic slider wheels (not bearings, just a plastic wheel stuck in a plastic hub) that the door hangs from with real bearings and wheels - I stregthened the door at the edges with bits of wood, sealed onto with EB25 (loving that stuff), and then have cut slots in door and fitted an electromagnetic lock. - I added magnets to the top and bottom of the doors - this makes them move far smoothly and less rattly - as they now pull themselves towards to wall rather than rattling about. Its all runninig quite smoothly now, and with the door stengthening it feels quite robust now. To get a really solid and clean seal between the doors though, I need to strengthen the lintle with ali extrusions which should hopefully arrive at weekend. these will also be the main bars that the motors attach to. For now, where there are holes where stuff has been removed I am leaving, but have got some butyl tape and a circular cutter, which I've tried as a clean way to fill them, and that seems to be ok - just want to leave it a week first and see how it goes before I do the rest. Alternative is too tape inside, little bit of filler on outside then sand and paint every one - which frankly seems like hard work. I can also pop a bit of paint over the butyl tape. I've got a tin of anthacite spray paint, but not tried it for a match yet, but hoping its close enough to cover scratches here and there, etc. Pictures attached - most of the rough stuff will be either covered in insulation (wood, inside panels, etc), or cleaned up later. I realise my metal work on the edges is a bit 'hammer finish'.. mainly because.. it was finished with a hammer... but it's as good as I can do - and with the anthracite finish it's really not that obvious. For rest of week, I'll be working on the ESP32 microprocessor code to control release 1 of the automation stuff - roof and doors open/close and door lock, with internal buttons to control, plus API integration with alexa and a remote control. Other releases planned, but thought I'd do it in stages rather than big bang. But I think I am going to automate before I move on to other tasks like insulation, floor, mounts, etc - as it'll be easier to experiment without it being full of stuff, and lets face it - the design is only in my head - if it turns out to be mince and needs throwing a way and rethinkinig - better that I have a clean canvas to work with that a finished observatory to start to have to take to bits again. And yes, @adyj1 that includes audio amp and speaker so esp32 can play star trek open door sound effect when doors open - goes without saying this is clearly a core release 1 requirement!

just to say the bug I raised about autoruns not imaging sometimes after a meridian flip was acknowledged and is being fixed in 2.1 - doesn't say if was fixed already or added because of my report, but shows it is worth raising tickets. Apparently it was an APP only issue, not on air or mini. stu

Looking forward to reading the review. I've front mounted l-extremes with decent results.

First time I've shot this - it's one I only get a brief opportunity to in the year. SW 200PDS, asi2600 and L-ultimate. Shot last night with 10 min subs. Got around 5 hours in total. See was average to poor, but you have to be in it to win it as they say. stu

2.11 here https://inter-static.skywatcher.com/downloads/az-eq6_motor_controller_v0211.zip

yup, good points, I suppose once you've had experience with other filters then you know if what you are seeing is good or bad, but otherwise you might just assume it is - and of course you SHOULD for 350 quid to be able to reply on the quality of something like a filter. They should all be tested spectrographically imho at manufacture for that price.

Just my 2c - I use a D2 along with my L-ultimate. I've been very happy with the D2 so far - using the Sii, and stacking up the Oiii into my L-ultimate Oii. With the L-ultimate you get sharp stars, no halos, and 3nm ha and oiii, and with with D2 I get decent Sii and the Oiii adds into the L-ultimate oiii nicely. It seems a pretty good combination so far. I've tried it so far with my redcat and 80ED only, but plan to use them with all the OTAs eventually (see sig) stu

It is a bit overkill, ethernet will run 100m easy. And shielded cat6 is available if required. If you want 10gb then go fibre, but otherwise...does seem a bit overkill - but nowt wrong with that if it floats yer boat! 🙂

all the old versions are on SW website I believe ?

sounds like camera disconnect is reason then ? possibly pulled loose while moving ? happened to me quite a few times. yeh bug wise, it even zips up all the logs and uploads them with your problem report so it's pretty painless.

was it random, or just after a meridian flip ? mine reguarily stops imaging after a meridian flip in autorun - it does the flip, plate solves, starts guiding, and then just sits there idle even though autorun is 'running'. stopping and starting autorun makes no difference. the only thing that does is either rebooting (Arg... have to goto, re calibrqate guiiding, etc again), or to go to plan and set up a plan that does the remaining subs youo wanted for the autorun. I've raised that one as a bug with asiair. I assume people ARE raising bugs ? If not, please do - you can do it in the app. It look about 1 week for mine to be assigned, and it is now being looked at. stu

Having read the thread now, I can't say I have your issues. Weird. Something to do with the mount maybe ? I certainly found with my new EQ6 (which replaced AM5 in dec), it didn't like the chipset for the USB serial and I had to buy a serial usb to RJ45 FTDI chipset one. But though that worked, it seemed to be doing funny things - sometimes not flipping, sometimes going the wrong way or PA being weird. In the end, I found that a ZWO issues image to reflash my asiair to which had the new driver for the EQ6 chipset. Once I'd flashed that on, reconnected the new app, and let it upgrade image to the latest, I could use the in buiilt USB port on the asiair and the issues I had all went away. It doesn't sound like it's the same thing for you to be honest, though it does sort of sound mount related - it might be worth hunting the forums and seeing what your mount is using. And if you are using a serial lead, try another one with a different chip set - perhaps the update changed the linux driver under the covers for it and that's whats screwing it up. stu

missed this thread. I've been using 2 asiairs for 2 years, and the showing the UI of one on the other has always been the case - it's just a bit rubbish when switching. you need to switch, close app, and reconnect really. or better still, just use a differnt device for each asiair - which is what I do now. The PA is interesting - I had that behaviour with the AM5 I had - though I did eliminate the asiair and still had issues so there was an issue with the AM5 - which went back to FLO and was replaced with an EQ6 which works faultlessly

What issues u having with yer asiair? Only ones I have are ones I've always had - main one being sometimes after a meridian flip on autorun it just sits there not imaging wasting the night. I've raised it finally with zwo.

I do think it's another example of a badly names nebula - as it couldn't look more like a Brain if the stars under it spelled out B R A I N.

I like that - and a great example of achieving great results with cheap kit too. It'd be interesting to see what BlurX might make of it ? stu