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> Congrats on a well-executed model!

Thanks. :)

> Based on the size of the roof area for the solar panels, I'm assuming you've picked out the panels already. Have a link? I'm curious in learning more about what you've selected.

Definitely monocrystalline panels. As an example, Renogy makes a nice little 200W starter kit with charge controller and such. May or may not wind up going with that exact unit, but it'll be something similar.

As for the size, I just hacked together a couple of 24" by 48" scale blocks, since that ought to cover a majority of pairs of panels i might settle on.

The basic calculations here are based on several trips to the field with my current rig running on a 101Ah battery.

• I generally seem to use 15-20% of the capacity (so, 20Ah) for a full night's imaging. So I'm planning based on being able to deliver 20Ah to the batteries on a clear day.
  
  
• At 200W, at what is a nominal 14V or so from typical MC panels, we're looking in the range of 14A. I always cut that expectation in half, so I'm looking to get 7A out of these panels.
  
  
• At 7A, that says I need 3 hours of clear skies and good sun to refresh from a night's imaging.
  
  
• Did some poking around in some historical weather data and some solar planning sites, and found that it's pretty reasonable to expect 3 hours of sunlight within 48 hours after any given clear night.
  
  
• So...I'll double up my battery...go to 200Ah of capacity...which should let me image 6-8 nights without recharges EASILY, and that should cover any oddball runs of "clear night, cloudy day".
  
  The system is almost certainly overkill, but I like it that way. :)
  
  > Also, how do you plan on sealing out moisture at the roof seam?
  
  A little flap of shingles, basically...sort of how Harry Page did his as linked in the OP.

Here is the full album including the narrowband channels

• Red zone for light pollution (this is a narrowband filtered image, so no fucks given)
  
• Orion ED80T CF
  
• Stock focuser replaced with MoonLiteFocuser + High Res Stepper Motor w/ MoonLite Mini V2 Controller
  
• Orion Atlas Pro EQ Mount
  
• STF-8300M CCD - FW5 -20c Temperature
  
• Astrodon 3nm HA - Here is a topic I made comparing the 3nm HA Astrodon filter to a 7nm HA Baader filter
  
• Orion Field Flattener for Short Refractors
  
• TheSkyX Pro with Camera-Addon for image acquisition and automation
  
• PemPro v2 for getting an accurate drift align (drift aligned explained here)
  
• 10 x 15 minute dark exposures at -15c
  
• 30 x 10 minute Hydrogen Alpha sub exposures
  
• 20 x 10 minute SII & OIII
  
• 20 flat frames using Spike-aTM Flat Fielder
  
• 50 bias frames
  
• 2 pixel dithering
  
• SBIG ST-i CCD for auto-guiding using OAG-8300
  
• Pixinsight for basic histogram stretch and curves adjustment - They have a Free Trial, use it!
  
• Dew Heater with heater band

Equipment:
Nikon D7100 w/ 70-300 VR (@300mm & f/5.6)
External Intervalometer
Manfrotto 190XB with an off brand ball head
Solar Filter (made from two sheets of mylar emergency blanket (as such) and the lid from a peanut butter jar, which was painted matte black using leftover chalkboard paint (left because of this wonderful project)

Acquisition:
I captured images at 1/80th of a second approximately every ten minutes (more in some places) starting at 1:17PM (EST) and ending at 2:35PM. I took lots of images (5+) at a time and picked the "best" ones that were suffering from the least atmospheric distortion.

Processing:
I processed (using a preset on the first image and applying it to the rest) in Lightroom. I had some difficulty with the last three images in the series, as they were significantly darker, so I had to lighten them in post to compensate. I have no idea what made them darker. Processing was pretty simple, with some changes to darkness (to get rid of the haze from the filter), saturation, white balance, and highlights, as well as my typical sharpening routine. Cropped images were then exported and composited in GIMP. Getting these lined up (both on the composite, and in orientation) was by far the most difficult part of this, as I didn't bother keeping the orientation of my camera stable while I was imaging, so it had to be done manually after the fact.

Overall, I'd say I'm rather pleased with how this came out, the weather was really nice, and the homebrew filter worked better than it had any right too (although I wouldn't recommend it over spending a couple bucks on some solar film). I think in the future (probably specifically 2024) I would be a bit more careful with timing and orientation to give a slightly more consistent result.