Astrobdlbug Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 (edited) Hi everyone, bit early in the new imaging season for me to be back under the skies as I usually dont get started until late August into September as we get more astro darkness, but the run of clear skies during the hot spell we enjoyed in July got me back out under the skies and imaging. I dont have a azimuth table for my skyshed POD so I basically unbolted the dome and tilted it back onto my shed roof so I could get view of Cygnus - its a quirk of the SkyShed POD, but I can live with the few times I have to do this. The next part of my new imaging system was to build a new more powerful PC to handle the large data sets as the ASI2600MC-PRO generates 52Mb subs as it is a APS-C 26MP sensor. I built a custom PC about 15 years ago - a gaming system for my teenage son at the time, obviously PC technology has moved on considerably - so I had great fun researching all the components for a new PC. I decided to go down the multicore Ryzen route and use NVMe M.2 card for storage that sits on PCIe Bus, now at a revision 4 with over 5Gb/s bandwidth - amazing performance, I also stuffed it with 32Gb of RAM to keep all the astro processing programs well fed with fast data access when processing large mosaics. I then probably got a bit carried away as most of these custom builds are done by gamers, so I got caught up in the build possibilities and ended up going down the full custom water cooling path, where you use acrylic tubing and bend it to your requirements and have reservior of water (the water is very pure and treated with various inhibitors to stop it clogging up and its also coloured !! All great fun, basically very precise plumbing exercise. I dont have a updated graphics card as they are rarer than hens teeth and rediculously expensive thanks to crypto-currency miners using GPUs. I will have to wait until prices get back to sensible levels, so I am using a card I had thats about 5-6 years old, but it does the job fine. Yes - the LED lighting is a bit of fun and my colour profile trying to mimic narrowband colour pallete... Now to the image, I posted in the camera section that I had a bit of a struggle as I use Rpi and INDI/EKOS for controlling my rig and aquiring images - long story short - the default ZWO white balance is wrong and results in a bit of a mess in post processing - I have recovered my image with updated calibration frames, but I think I have left a lot out as I fought to clear the wild colours and gradients brought on by the white balance issue. I captured 6 panels about 16hours worth, Sadr - N.Amercan-Cygnus Loop but I am finding it hard to match them all into a decent image - so this is just a two panel section an extended view of Sadr region : ASI2600MC Optolong L-Extreme dual band filter 77 : 120s subs 135mm Samyang at f2.8 Captured between 14-18th July 2021 Hope you enjoyed this Sunday afternoon read - I'm off to watch Hungarian F1 GP, Comments and feedback welcome Bryan Edited August 1, 2021 by Astrobdlbug Formatting and link to AstroBin Image 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 Great write up Bryan and a good spot about the 2600 which I am sure will become many peoples camera of choice as the 1600 has been superseded. Fab finished image too. Hopefully you add the other sections soon too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Padraic M Posted August 1, 2021 Share Posted August 1, 2021 Very nice image Bryan! You've also got me thinking about a custom PC (but without the lights and the plumbing!!!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkAR Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 Excellent image Bryan. Great write up on the PC too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmack1 Posted August 2, 2021 Share Posted August 2, 2021 That is a really fantastic image. I love the widefield but with the crescent so prominent. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carastro Posted August 3, 2021 Share Posted August 3, 2021 OMG Bryan, the picture of your dome tipped back gave me a real shock. I know how heavy these domes are and initially thought it had fallen off. How on Earth do you manage to lift it back on again? I have a PZT and sometimes struggle to get that back on. Carole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astrobdlbug Posted August 3, 2021 Author Share Posted August 3, 2021 5 hours ago, Carastro said: How on Earth do you manage to lift it back on again? HI Carole - didn't mean to shock - yes its a bit tricky to tip back like this - The shed roof I cover with a dust sheet and its just right distance away so the dome doesn't fall off in the gap- I also use a small folding table to support the dome edge. I cover everything with a silvered car cover overnight - I dont want to be manipulating a dome at 3am !! Getting it back on it is ok - I lift each edge a bit at a time leveraging each side and ensuring its reasonablely centered to get it back on rollers. I think that using PZT you have to lift/push entire dome weight where in my rather eccentric way I am only lifting a percentage of total for each mini lift - its probably not good for it but when I get the dome to a certain level I use the door in open position to temporaly support that side while I lift the opposite side onto the rollers. I dont have space for a PZT and I only image objects at azimuth rarely - last year it was Elephant Trunk in September. As I said above it is a bit quirky - but I wouldnt swap my SkyShed POD for anything else..... Bryan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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