Years ago, I bought a Kendrick tent for $100 from the company. The owner warned me that the tent poles would likely break and I would have to replace them and that is why he was selling the new tents at some cheap prices.
With the pandemic I spent a month and half at my vacation rental (county closed it during the pandemic). I set up the Kendrick tent for the first time a decade after buying it!!!
Here is what I learned.
The tent size is 8X14. Perfect for imaging. The telescope section is 8X8 and the warm room is 6X8. Use of the tent as "storage" for everything was as important as the warm room for imaging.
Kendrick was right about the tent poles. The tent was setup on a mountain meadow and really not subject to winds much over 20 miles per hour. All three support poles broke over time. What Kendrick didn't mention, were mice living in the meadow. They started chewing on the ground cloth and one mouse managed to chew through the ground cloth and the Kendrick floor!!! Didn't expect that.
The tent size of 8 feet by 14 feet and 6 feet high is a "sail". Lots of surface area for the wind to blow.
I was impressed with the Kendrick tent. The wind issue gives me pause.
So ideas that I came up with include:
A small dome tent for the telescope. Really you only need the telescope covered when it is not being used. I am thinking about cutting a slit out the floor of a small dome tent and then simply lifting it up and over the telescope when using it.
A second larger dome tent for the warm room. This is for storage as well as use as a warm room. Dome tent "shed" wind better than other designs, except maybe for "tunnels".
The Kendrick tent has a separate fly which was unwieldly. Really you only need a single wall tent for astronomy for the telescope. For the warm room, it would probably be helpful to have a "mini" fly with netting on warm nights. Not that we have warm nights in the mountains, but in other locales it would be helpful. The single wall would reduce weight and cost and the general "problems" with rain flies.
I have some other ideas, but this is enough to get the discussion started.
It is, unfortunate, that Kendrick no longer makes observatory tents. I really do think that with some design changes the concept is workable that prices could be cheap enough to have amateur's buy the tents.
Given my experience with the Kendrick tent I would buy another one, particularly a tent that is quick to set up and take down.