REV A:

After what seems an age my fully automated observatory is now built and 'almost' fully operational.

Managed to get a semi-unattended session last night (I let it do its thing but watched).

After all the tpointing, polar aligning, figuring out direct guiding (where was this in the manuals?) and endless cable tidies was nice to actually point at the sky at press 'go'.

Few issues to sort still - scope needs re-collimating due to all moving and need to run some new focus curves. Then refractor and second camera to be added.

Only 5 subs so happy with the results so far will be reshooting once collimated.

PS: For those wondering - FOVO was my sons idea which I quite liked! - I am lucky enough to have a field at the rear of my property from where I view the skies, I have placed the observatory in this field, well you can work the rest out

REV B:

Just 3x1200 sec subs at moment.

After getting PA sorted and a small tpoint model I only then realised PME's have no pre-installed PEC!

I will be getting that sorted tonight along with a more substantial model.

I also ran a slightly adapted version of Neil Flemming's focusmax routine with 200x5 step increments either side of base focus which has improved the focus about 40%!

So now have round stars through PA and good focus - final tweaks to PEC, model and use of protrack should then allow me to start to get some data down and actually start imaging again

REV C:

Just looking at image again and a simple rotation improves the framing (and in my eyes a far more striking image. Right now of to tweak before this evening so that I can actually work on finishing it!

REV D: Managed to get a few more subs - little more fine tuning will grab about double this before I finish this HA test so back in few days if the weather holds out.

REV E:

Final test shot - I have now figured I have some guidescope differential flexure - AKA the sellotape holding my lodestar in the guidescope is causing some guiding issues and elongated stars when it moves!! New bits here Saturday and will reshot the target from scratch.