A project for the soul

[jimao22]

Hi guys,

I will open this topic to tell you a story about how to win when you have nothing to lose or how ordinary peoples can do extraordinary things for the ones who do not have our luck - to be healthy enough to use our hands and legs properly. I will open the topic here, because it has sense, you’ll see.

My story begins in 2013, when on Romanian astronomy forum – http://www.astronomy.ro a new member make his account, nickname CUBIX, real name George Vinturis.

He seems to be a regular guy, interested in astronomy as a newbie. Regular introduction to the others, few technical questions, nothing special…

Somehow, after few weeks, the truth came out about this 22 years old boy. He is cripple, immobilised in a wheel chair from his early childhood, having a disease called (in an approximate translation) neuromuscular jam arthritis – perhaps it exist a precise word in English for that but I am not medical doctor. This disease make him unable to use his arms, his fingers, his legs and toes and as a result, unable to walk, to do anything with his own hands, excepting using a mouse for the computer or a similar task. He had 10 surgical interventions untill now and no real progress was noticed. To make the situation worse, his father died one yer ago. His mother have only a very small income received from the government, as a social worker for her son. Inspite of all these, the boy have a moral and a disire for life who amazed me.

What was amazing to the beginning about this boy it was he had the ambition and the nerv to make himself a refractor. He bought an achromat objective, a focuser, a pipe for water instalation, some small fittings and with the help of a friend (friend’s hands), he made his first telescope.

The efforts and the results make us - the other peoples from the Romanian forum - to try to do something in order to help him. So George received soon after his first essay, a brand new AZ3 mount, some eyepieces, a focuser and a motor for the focuser, a 1.25” diagonal.

Because the names should have some pictures attached, I will add here some pictures of our friend and his first telescope.

[jimao22]

Things seems to be stark there and no big events happens after that first stage. But last summer, a very wealthy member of our forum, but with a big heart as well, sent to George his pristine EQ5 Synscan mount as a gift.

I was in touch all this time with George because I let him enter remotely in my observatory’s computer when I had acquisition sesions or when we made some pictures processing sessions, so I knew that he will receive that mount very soon.

I make a small detour now, telling you that George is a very smart boy, with a very high IQ, but because of the special situation, he was in school only 4 years. He have a native ability to highly understand the computer and how the programs work, so his remotely presence on my computer was a very apreciate fact.

So - back to main story - at that point, George asked me what kind of telescope will be the best fit for his new mount, having in mind he cannot descend from the wheel chair. I asked him “Ok, how much money do you have for this purpose?”.  “About 50 quids”- he said.

Black-out…

All I had in my mind at that point was to add some money to that sum and to try to find a second-hand telescope, no bigger than 6”.

The second thought came logicaly – visual observation is not an option for this boy. The mount should be polar aligned, the telescope balanced, than synchronized – his mother cannot do this…What was left as a valid option is an astrophotographic system, installed inside a small observatory, remote controlled from inside the house. So that was the idea who lead our path starting from that point on…

[Tzitzis]

Amazing...Just amazing...

You did good to help him with by buying EP's and mount and everything...

This just goes to show how strong the human spirit is, even with body difficulties he never gave up.

Inspiring story.

[jimao22]

The story is just to the beginning - do not hurry.

We have an observatory by now. But wait to see how this happens...

And I need to say that I was only a small wheel into the mechanism that succeed to acomplish this task.

[laudropb]

A vey heart warming story. I hope all goes well with the observatory and young George finds an outlet for his talents.

Good luck with this project and please keep us up to date with your progress.

[Scorpius]

An amazing story and I sense it is far from over. One of life’s greatest opportunities is to be involved in a group effort that transcends thoughts of self and what benefits us the most as individuals. The title of your post says it all – it feeds the soul.  Congratulations on your success so far and please keep us posted on George’s future accomplishments...

[Vox45]

I don't have the words .... what an amazing story.

[Dave Lloyd]

It kinda puts moaning about the weather etc into perspective.

[jimao22]

Let's go on, like Sheherezada. Last night I was home very late and very-very tired, but now I'm ok and I will continue the story, wich is far from the end. To be precise, the end is ahead of this moment, because this is an ongoing process.

So...

At that point I said to myself "Is time to be involved in this more than that, because someone should coordinate all this". I had some very good experience to organize astro-events here in Romania. As a moderator into the Romanian astronomy forum -www.astronomy.ro , I was the organizer of the first and the second edition of the forum's star-party, in May 2013 and 2014, with more than 40 participants every time, people arrived from all over the country, in an idilic location close to the highest mountains from Romania. I know well a lot of Romanian astronomers, even professional ones, so this helped me a lot to start thinghs happend with this new astro-soul project.

I sent the invitation to join the cause to the ones I knew, especially astro-photographers (because they could understand much better the needs for this project) and the results amazed and enchanted me.

In less than one month, we had a DSLR body, a CELESTRON OMNI XLT 150 (the newtonian), an off axis guider, an EQDIR, a motorized focuser with stepper, computer-controled, a Ha Baader filter, a garage door operator, almost all of the materials for the building itself, a very powerfull computer for controlling the whole things, a binocular 7x50 with an adaptor for tripod, a Samsung video-camera for sky surveillance and money to buy stuff needed to complete the project.

Few pictures with the items we received from our colleagues and friens...

[jimao22]

At one moment I had an idea - to try to involve in this project some astronomy shops from abroad - especially from UK  (a country that I like very much and I visited quite often last few years).

So I sent a short mail to 5 or 6 astro-shops from around the UK and amazing, I received a positive answer from OPTICSTAR - Manchester ( www.opticstar.com ).

Lee, Peter and George sent us a very nice telescope (refractor) along with a finder, some filters (moon, light polution and colour filters) and 2 very good eyepieces. This scope has been shown as the best one for eye observation for George, because of the comfortable position for him to observe the stars.

This is what we get from OPTICSTAR, a very-very nice bunch of people and here is George using this telescope in some of the night when I was there to start the observatory building. 

[jimao22]

With the money received we bought a CCD camera (not a fancy one but good enough for teh beginning), an ATIK 16 IC mono, bought from astrobuysell.com/uk/ and a lot of other necessary things to start the building - metal rolls for the roof, paint, rails, screws, some wood profiles - for example.

[Gutross]

that is awesome!  the power of a group of people with the same interests

[laser_jock99]

Great story- keep us up to date.

[Gina]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant   A very moving story and a great effort - well done and thank you for telling us about it

[jimao22]

Hi,

Thank you all for your kind words. That's one of the reasons I keep moving with this project forward. The other one (more important, obvious) is the joy and happiness acquired by helping someone in great need, having same passion.

Anyway, let's continue the story...

I forgot to tell you George is living 350 km away from my home. He's home is on the Black Sea shore, 30 km south of Constanta. 

This is a serious reason why I couldn't advanced much faster to finish this project. 

On 7-th of November, last year, I went to George to meet him at last, in flesh and blood, to give him what I received personaly in his behalf and to start the building itself. For this first stage of the project, I reserved 4 days.

With the major help of another coleague astronomer who live relatively near by George and the physical suport of 2 of my best friends from Oceanic Club Constanta, we started to build the observatory.

The building was designed to be not very complicated (because the given restrictions of time and money) and not very large, but good enough to keep inside the set-up we have. 

So the dimensions for the observatory are 2x2 meters and is a roll-off-roof type, with a concrete slab base, without a pier (we'll use the mount tripod) and wooden structure with wooden composite boards for walls and roof.

I had the advantage of the know-how acquired during the building of my own observatory (see the topic "A Romanian observatory" here on this forum), wich prooven to be very important.

Because we need to make things as simple as possible but still effective, I decided to incorporate the bottom wooden beams directly into the concrete slab, protected by a plastic foil until the concrete dry. The first day was alocated to pour the slab and dig the trench for the power and control cables.

[damnut]

congratulations on all your hard work, and to the contibutors. Look forward to seeing the completed project.

[jimao22]

Thank you, Damian! 

Next day, we checked if the concrete slab is dried enough to step on it without any damage to occur - which was ok, in order to start erect the walls. As I told you, we decided to use OSb boards (or Sterling boards - I found you call them in UK) for the walls. At this point, my other two friends from Constanta, Razvan and Liviu (they are not astronomers but they have realy big hearts), came to George to help me doing this.

We spent the entire second day togheter to cut the beams, cut the OSB, assembly all togheter, paint the wood and the boards (is a very humid area on the sea shore, so we need to pay attention to these details) and inserting the cables into the protection tube, for the electrical instalation. 

At the end of the day, we had something profiling in the darkness, resembling as an observatory...

[RT65CB-SWL]

What a lovely and heartwarming post.

[Gutross]

Really enjoying this thread. Great story. I look for updates everyday

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

[Dsidote]

Wow! This is a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing.

[Stub Mandrel]

A great story, it says as many good things about you and your friends as it does about George.

[jimao22]

The third day was alocated to pouring the small slabs for the vertical beams that support the rails outside the observatory wall. I did the job by myself, without help, becuse my friends couldn't came that day. It was a short day because I was exhausted and because of the wheater (a rain shower started and didn't stop until late evening).

For the fourth day, I wasn't available (because I had to go back home) but my friends promised me they will came to continue to work to the observatory, for the electrical network. So Liviu and Razvan came that day and as you can see in the pictures bellow, they finished to install the power outlets, the electric panel with fuses, all connected to the main house power supply. It was a job done late  evening because my friends came there after the daily regular job.

I need to aplogize for my English, I supose gramatical faults and bad expresions are all over the place, but I hope my story is understandable... 

[jimao22]

So this is how the observatory look like after my first working sesion there. The roof was only to keep the interior dry, some OSB boards caught tight with nails to avoid them to fly because of the hard wind during the winter time.

[jimao22]

I went for a second time to work to George's observatory last year in December. But because of the bad weather, I did very few things, not worting to be mention here. So my second trip was useless, unfortunatelly. We make some plans for the spring time and that was all.

After a long time of waiting, I decided to go back there in June, this year. A lot of things to do on my list and a very good wheater this time. My friends were not available this time (only Liviu, for few hours - but a very welcome and good timing arrival).

One of my good friend and bussines partner helped me with a PVC door, a missing item on my list. I explained him about our project and he produced for us a brand new door to be instaled on the site.

So, my list was the following:

- installing the PVC door

- to make and install the vertical beams for the rails

- to drill the montage holes into the metalic V-shape rails

- to clean from rust and paint the rails

- to instal the horizontal wooden beams along with the rails (with very high precision, with special care for the parallelism of the rails)

- to make the main frame for the roof, with the rolls on it

- to cover the roof with corugated mill board

I arrived to George's house very late in the evening (almost 11 o'clock) after a very hard day to my work and a 350 km trip, so I fell asleep in 10 minutes after  my arrival. But next day I was with the moral up and ready to start build some observatories.

I started to scratch off my list, item by item and surprisingly, till the end of the first day, I did everything excepting the roof. The most dificult was to install the metalic rails parallel, because I was alone and it was a bit tricky to do this by myself. 

The pictures  bellow will show you what I did that day.

[jimao22]

The next day was the toughest ever.

I had 4 metallic rolls and the goal was to find an easy way to install them on the mobile wooden beams. I found in the George's courtyard some old wooden beams but straight enough, 12x12 cm section and around 2 meters long, fitting perfect for our purpose. I made some (approximately) rectangular holes, using the drilling machine and an electric saw - the result was not perfect but because these holes are invisible in the end, I didn't pay to much attention to them. This is the place where the roll is hiding, only a small piece of it being visible, where the roll meet the rail.

When this job was ready, I installed the rolls on the beams, followed by assembly of the whole frame for the roof, using another 2 wooden beams. For the stiffness, I used long screws (1), metallic corners (2) and metallic plates (3), because the base of the roof need to be very rigid. I checked the orthogonality of the frame measuring both diagonals and adjusting them to be equals using some straps.

This was the moment Liviu show up, when some extra muscles was a big requirement. With his help, we assembled the roof structure and then we picked up the whole structure on the observatory rails.

After that, I covered the structure with OSB and corrugated mill board.

It was a long and hard day and I finished it by going to the sea and having a half of hour of sun bathe and swim.