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Equipment Discussions >> Observatories

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jblaschke
super member

Reged: 03/07/08

Loc: New Braunfels, Texas

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Roll-off Rail Piers new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5465451 - 10/11/12 02:13 PM

Wow. Having dug and and put up fence through that Hill Country limestone, I have to applaud your tenacity! Looks like it's going to be a beauty when finished!

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Roll-off Rail Piers new

new

[Re: jblaschke]
#5466151 - 10/11/12 11:25 PM

Thanks Jayme!

I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

Beo

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mikey cee
Postmaster

Reged: 01/18/07

Loc: bellevue ne.

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Roll-off Rail Piers new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5466627 - 10/12/12 10:25 AM

No pain no gain.

Mike

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Walk-through new

new

[Re: mikey cee]
#5571928 - 12/15/12 01:44 AM

Hi All:

I'm cross-posting this same message to my original thread, as this is where I'll be posting the other pictures later this week... I'm about ready to start standing up some walls on Orion Ranch Observatory, and will be sharing some design photos and plans, as well as letting you follow along with the construction. I've added a lot of generally unnecessary detail to my 3-D model just trying to make sure I have everything planned out and don't forget anything (and just for the fun of it on some things) so I thought I'd share a walk-through of the nearly complete design. The resolution's not great, and there are some rendering issues, but for the most part it looks pretty good. I'll see about posting some individual screen shots over the weekend. Please let me know if I'm missing anything (other than the soffits/vents, and the box around the vent fan). It's a pain trying to make sure I've thought of all of the materials, etc. so my BOM's right and things will go smoothly!

Thanks,

Beo

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Skip
Starlifter Driver

Reged: 01/23/08

Loc: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Walk-through new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5574112 - 12/16/12 12:45 PM

Lookin good, Beo! Can't wait for some more pics of construction progress. Thanks for keeping us updated.

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Walk-through new

new

[Re: Skip]
#5575072 - 12/17/12 01:07 AM

Thanks Skip! I've put a few exterior shots of the model online. I'll try to get some interior shots put up tomorrow.

Beo

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Orion Ranch Observatory - Interior and Framing new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5588724 - 12/25/12 05:54 PM

Hi all. I've been pretty busy, but here are some images of the interior as well as the framing plans for the observatory.

Enjoy!

Beo

Observatory Interior, looking East:

Looking North:

Looking South:

Looking West:

Warm room looking East:

Looking North:

Looking West:

Here are some views of the framing.

Edited by Lord Beowulf (12/25/12 06:32 PM)

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5588830 - 12/25/12 07:44 PM

And now I can start building! Last Thursday I ordered everything from Home Depot. On Friday I got out and sealed the concrete (should have done that long ago) and finished preparing the site for the arrival of materials. Finished up as the sun sets...

Saturday the materials arrived.

Weaving through the trees!

LOTS of stuff!

But eventually everything's off the truck and on palettes so it's off the ground.

Cutting the first piece of wood!

By Saturday night I have a nice stack of studs cut down to size and the ends that will become the eaves of the roll-off.

Marking the frame boundary with chalk lines.

Positioning the first couple of sill plates.

Part way through framing the first wall.

Finishing off the frame for the observatory air conditioner on Sunday evening.

Starting Monday with standing up the first wall after bracing it.

First wall up, second segment almost framed.

Second wall braced and up. We have a corner!

And by Monday night I have a third wall segment done up to the door location.

Looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow! As always, you can click on any of these to see the web page for full sized images as well as additional images not posted here.

Beo

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Skip
Starlifter Driver

Reged: 01/23/08

Loc: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5588860 - 12/25/12 08:25 PM

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Scott Horstman
Vendor - Backyard Observatories

Reged: 03/11/04

Loc: Too Far North, USA

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5588985 - 12/25/12 10:21 PM Attachment (23 downloads)

Nice job Beo. Not sure if your drawing depicts the ribs on the metal roofing or how you plan on running the hip rafters but you want to keep all the load on the rollers. Just put your bottom gutter boards on the north and south ends and then lay out your 16" or 24" centers up the hips from that and put your "rafters" in like this.

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Scott Horstman]
#5589020 - 12/25/12 10:55 PM

Thanks Scott. You've actually shown me this picture in the past, confirming the idea I'd originally had for that part. The images show a standing seam metal roof, but that will be over an OSB decking on the wood framing. I also adopted a slightly modified version of the wheel mounting system you have here. My approach provides a continuous capture mechanism on the top rail.

Beo

Roof frame:

Capture Mechanism:

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JJK
scholastic sledgehammer

Reged: 04/28/08

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Interior and Framing new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5589219 - 12/26/12 04:46 AM

A friend of mine built a RoR observatory with a warm room/control room that had a double pane window between the two rooms. That allowed the scopes to be viewed while slewing, and made the warm room feel larger.

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Scott Horstman
Vendor - Backyard Observatories

Reged: 03/11/04

Loc: Too Far North, USA

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5589294 - 12/26/12 08:17 AM Attachment (22 downloads)

Quote:

My approach provides a continuous capture mechanism on the top rail.

We've been doing this the last few years, mostly on remote observatories. It's pretty straight forward and works well. Lots of drilling in the 3/16 angle iron though. Larger buildings we'll add a third or fourth roller bracket. It's just 1 1/2 on the walls, 2" on the beams (because they are inside the plywood) and 2" for the roller brackets. Depending on the siding, somtimes we cut the brackets down to 1 1/2 x 2". It's all bolted with 5/16 lags.

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Interior and Framing new

new

[Re: JJK]
#5590428 - 12/26/12 10:36 PM

Quote:

A friend of mine built a RoR observatory with a warm room/control room that had a double pane window between the two rooms. That allowed the scopes to be viewed while slewing, and made the warm room feel larger.

Neat idea, but I wouldn't want the light leakage from the warm room. I'm planning on adding IR security cameras at some point, which should do the job as long as the IR LEDs don't get picked up by the camera.

Beo

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JJK
scholastic sledgehammer

Reged: 04/28/08

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Interior and Framing new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5590442 - 12/26/12 10:44 PM

Quote:

Quote:

A friend of mine built a RoR observatory with a warm room/control room that had a double pane window between the two rooms. That allowed the scopes to be viewed while slewing, and made the warm room feel larger.

Neat idea, but I wouldn't want the light leakage from the warm room. I'm planning on adding IR security cameras at some point, which should do the job as long as the IR LEDs don't get picked up by the camera.

Beo

Understood.

How will the cooled CCD cameras not detect IR LED illumination picked by less sensitive security cameras? Strategic placement of the LEDs?

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Scott Horstman]
#5590452 - 12/26/12 10:50 PM

Quote:

We've been doing this the last few years, mostly on remote observatories. It's pretty straight forward and works well. Lots of drilling in the 3/16 angle iron though. Larger buildings we'll add a third or fourth roller bracket. It's just 1 1/2 on the walls, 2" on the beams (because they are inside the plywood) and 2" for the roller brackets. Depending on the siding, somtimes we cut the brackets down to 1 1/2 x 2". It's all bolted with 5/16 lags.

I'd originally been thinking of using angle iron, but didn't really like the thought of the complications for mounting it. The orientations just aren't quite right. In this case I was trying to solve a few other issues by adding bracing to the long spans of the walls and capping the laminated rails to minimize water infiltration, and this just came out of the process.

Beo

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5590540 - 12/26/12 11:45 PM

A few more pictures. We had a 60% chance of rain on Christmas, and while there was no sign of a drop of rain, the wind storm that blew through played havoc, including flipping over my nice expensive sliding miter saw! The tarp acted like a parachute and that was that. Luckily the framing is no worse for wear.

Finished the observatory west wall frame.

And the east wall frame.

Tomorrow should have the north observatory wall (mid wall) done and started on the warm room.

Beo

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! new

new

[Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5592238 - 12/28/12 07:59 AM

Well, I got a bit done yesterday before the 0% chance of rain that had been forecast turned into a light drizzle for the rest of the afternoon! Waiting on it to dry out a bit so I can get started this morning...

Beo

Had to heat up the PVC conduits to push them back into the wall.

And then build a wall to straddle them...

...and finally lift it from the lower floor into place. UGH! Just finished this when the drizzle started so took a quick picture and then covered everything up!

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Lord Beowulf
Pooh-Bah

Reged: 10/13/08

Loc: Cedar Park, TX

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! [Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5606259 - 01/05/13 10:23 AM

As I sit here waiting on things to dry out again (and lose another work day) I figured I should update the images from last weekend.

So after the unexpected/unscheduled rain last Thursday, I had to get out and sweep all the water off the slab before I could start on Friday. At least the water proofing worked well!

I then spent a good amount of time laying out the warm room to get things square and discovering that the lower slab is not completely square with the upper portion!

That wouldn't be a big deal, except when I poured the roll-off piers, I used the lower portion of the slab to help me square them up. So the inch or so of error on the slab translates to three inches at the furthest point, moving the 6" posts halfway off the 12" footing! Look for the pencil marks in these pics to see the outside edge of the post. I'll now be drilling and adding wedge anchors at about 5-10x the cost of the anchors that were embedded there.

By the end of the day I had one warm room wall almost framed up.

On Saturday a friend and colleague came out to help and we got the two east/west warm room walls finished.

Of course not only was the warm room slab not square, but it's also not level. If you look back you'll see that this was where they finished, so they didn't quite get enough concrete in when they were working the final level. Part of that may be due to the soup the guy had made resulting in more shrinkage on this side of the slab too! Whatever the cause, we had to shim the last few feet of the walls.

On Sunday I managed to get the North wall finished and stood it up in the rain that started long before it was scheduled and ended about the time I got all the equipment put away!

I have a bit of work to finish up the end wall, then get the doorway in the mid-wall. Then it's on to railing system and warm room ceiling!

Beo

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hm insulators
Post Laureate

Reged: 01/22/07

Re: Orion Ranch Observatory - Construction Begins! [Re: Lord Beowulf]
#5610023 - 01/07/13 11:31 AM

Whether it's building a house, an observatory or even a simple model car, it wouldn't be a construction project without something goofing up somewhere!

You know what they say: "Work expands to fill the time available."

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