37 replies to this topic

[bosh60]

You're a gutsy person digging that size hole with that tractor.  I'm seeing your front tire tracks in that hole a couple feet down in the slope!  Must have been a bit squirrelly getting that deep in that small of an area?

I actually did not intend to.  I was going to start it with the tractor and then finish by hand.  It went so well, I did it all with the tractor.  I had a lot of weight in the rear ballast box and kept it low to the ground. It was well balanced and I had no trouble crawling out of the hole. I dug a little wider than the bucket, which is the widest part of the tractor.  

[bosh60]

Well, actually, probably more light through the glass window. 

BUT... if he is turned on to "red" or "soft light"... should not be an issue.

Thanks for this discussion.  The room will be painted a very dark blue so I don't think a lot of light will come through the door.  I may put up curtains that I can pull over the window if I need to.  Light spilling from the warm room was not something I thought about. 

[t-ara-fan]

I have noticed that a dim red light in my observatory did boost the "median" value of my images.  The light went into the dew cap at an oblique angle, then no doubt some made it through the OTA and hit my sensor.

 

I am in the process of building a rolloff with a window between the warm room and observatory floor.  I might get a blackout roller blind or something ... a curtain will still let light leak around the edges.

[bosh60]

The exterior is finished.  Now working on the drywall of the warm room.

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[bosh60]

To seal the gable end fold-down, I used bristled door sweeps.  

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[bosh60]

Drywall and painting is finished in the warm room. Just the flooring and baseboard to do.  I bought a wall mural to put on the ceiling - mainly because I hate finishing drywall and this way did not have to finish the ceiling that well 

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[bosh60]

Inaugural night for the observatory, waiting for darkness to fall.  I just have to put up my starscape mural on the ceiling when it arrives, otherwise I'm done! From a plan to reality with some hard work, now to enjoy...

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[sberrada]

Very well done, looks super nice.

Enjoy every moment.

 

I am thinking of building something similar.

 

Would you be able to provide the garage door roller model / track or supplier.  I have seen many types of rollers and tracks, and some are more flimsy than others.

 

Also, are you planning to put a motor to open / close the roof ?

 

thanks for your help 

sam 

[Tom K]

Most impressive - I have enjoyed watching the progress.   If I said I wasn't jealous I would be lying!

[bosh60]

 

 

Would you be able to provide the garage door roller model / track or supplier.  I have seen many types of rollers and tracks, and some are more flimsy than others.

 

Also, are you planning to put a motor to open / close the roof ?

 

 I bought the track used off a local buy and sell.  I did support the track underneath with a 2x4. just in case (see post #17). The rollers I bought on Amazon, 11 ball bearings, rated at 75lbs per roller.  No plans at this point to motorize, its not that difficult to roll - perhaps someday in the future. 

Edited by bosh60, 15 September 2019 - 07:17 AM.

[sberrada]

Thank you very much for the information, and congratulations - well done.

 

Sam 

[bosh60]

I thought I would follow-up on my build after a year of use.  Generally, everything has turned out great and it's getting lots of use.  The roof continues to roll back and forth easily.  We had one major storm this summer that took down a lot of trees in the area, as well as a barn.  No damage to the observatory, but I'm glad I had safety chains attached the roof, the wind had pulled the chains tight!  Using brushes to seal between the roof eave and sidewalls has worked well.  It has kept blowing snow out and dust from the adjacent farmers field (harvesting of the beans is very dusty!).  The height of the walls and pier, and the position of the rolled back roof, has worked out great for views of the sky - it has not hampered what I want to do in anyway.  

 

Things I would change:

 

1) I used thick rubber horse stall mats for the floor in the scope area.  They have shrunk slightly and now I have small gaps. The floor is hard to keep clean. I wonder too if its a bit of heat sink?  Doing it again, I would use something different that is easier to keep clean.  My thinking was that the rubber mats were be good in case I dropped something - still true but not even close to dropping anything so far. 

 

2)  I have two 1" PVC conduits going up the middle of the pier over to the control room. They filled quickly - no more room.  Next time I would make a large channel under the floor for wiring.  If I stomp on the floor, I can see some vibration through the scope.  The pier is not touching the floor so I thing its through the conduits. I need to correct this.

 

3) In my tracking and wheels setup, I left some lateral tolerance in case the walls were not quite straight.  Next time, I would tighten that up some. 

 

4) Having a climate controlled control room is nice. However, since I ran ethernet cable back to my house, I don't use the control room much any more and do remote control from my house which works very well. An option might have been to eliminate the control room and have a second pier/mount within the same overall footprint of the building. Doing it over again, not sure if I would do that or not. The control room is still nice even though I don't use it as much.

 

5) I didn't design any easy accommodation for powering the roof open or close.  Since my build, I have discovered and routinely use NINA software.  I now use automated sequences and let them run all night while I sleep.  It would be nice to automatically close the roof after the sequence is finished. I don't mind going out to open the roof and firing things up, but automatically shutting down in the early morning hours would be nice. 

 

Overall I am very pleased with my setup. Of course having an observatory has dramatically increased the use of my equipment and accelerated my learning of astrophotography. 

[kathyastro]

2)  I have two 1" PVC conduits going up the middle of the pier over to the control room. They filled quickly - no more room.  Next time I would make a large channel under the floor for wiring.  If I stomp on the floor, I can see some vibration through the scope.  The pier is not touching the floor so I thing its through the conduits. I need to correct this.

When I built my dome, I ran conduits under the floor.  The outer end of each conduit is supported at the wall.  The inner end, prior to touching the pier, is supported by being attached to a block on the ground.  At no point is it attached to the floor: it just bridges the intervening distance (about 4').

 

Any floor vibrations would travel outward to the wall, where they are attenuated by the wall's foundation, and then continue along the bridged length of conduit to the block near the pier, where they are further attenuated.  The result is essentially zero transmission of vibrations through the conduit.

 

I used the same setup for each of three conduits: one each for 120v AC power, 12v DC power, and data cables.