Telescope Reviews: The Bone Yard

Dave, I completely agree. Tonight was the first night I was able to really get a good polar alignment with my scope. Having a safe, dry place for my mount to always be setup is really nice. Oh, and when I woke up and saw the clouds had moved in, I didn't worry about rain; just rolled the roof and started shooting darks

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If you have the room and some time to build one, a shed really makes it easier.. and that's with one night under my belt!

Oh, and the wood pier is the other one. I was a little worried about doing the 'wood'. While it's not 'rock' solid, as you'd expect, it has no problem dampening out the movement of the scope and getting it ready prior to taking pictures with a fairly decent load on it. (35# or so).

Oh, and total cost was around $1500; not cheap by any means but definitely manageable. The most expensive parts were the sheathing, the roofing, and the darn track. I couldn't find anyone to give me a decent deal on track!!

40' of track and rollers cost me nearly 350 bucks... That was probably the biggest sticker shock. Other than that, 5/8" plywood for the walls isn't cheap either. However, it definitely makes for a nicely finished product in the end. The biggest thing I found was to buy wood as you needed. I was surprised to find a fairly significant difference in price of lumber depending on the when/where... For instance, lumber was cheaper at menards (2x4s, etc) but the sheathing was almost 20% cheaper at the local lumber center. I probably could've saved some money if I'd shopped around more.

The tool I didn't have and found I really needed was an electric shears. Cheap, bought one on Amazon for 36 bucks, and it cuts through metal roofing like butter. Otherwise, I only used a circular saw, a sawz-all, a miter saw, and an electric driver/drill. I used mostly 3" screws to put it all together too.

One thing I would've done differently with the roof is probably to properly sheath it with plywood decking. I don't think it would've weighed significantly more (just over 2 sheets of plywood of the thinnest stuff I could find if I did it) and it would've saved me a few bad punctures of the metal roofing. Oh, and I bought 1 5/8" roofing screws, when I should've just bought 2.5"... I only needed a few of the 2.5" but it was at the end of the day when I wanted to be done! And, with the metal roofing, you'll need to rent a larger shear tool to cut it evenly to the length of your roof. I think the electric shear could be used too, it just wouldn't be "as" clean.

Oh, and build the roof with pre-made materials. It cost 35 a piece from the local box store to have 4/12 pitch gable ends bought. There just isn't a reason not to make it simple

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Finally, you're really gonna need a buddy to help you out with this. I needed help for about 3 days of construction; the foundation, actually throwing the walls up, and finally getting the steel roofing on. Mostly it was a weight thing; I could manage the parts by myself but it wasn't easy!

Well, time for bed since the clouds rolled in.

Thanks again, and CS!
Chris