The Boley Drive Obervatory (circa 1980)

[RobertI]

Came across this photo of the setup I had as a young teenager back in 1980. It was a 6" reflector on a manual equatorial by Charles Frank. I was really lucky that my parents supported my passion and it was an incredible scope for someone of my age at the time. The 'run off' observatory was my Dad's own back-of-fag-packet design, made of 4x4 plywood with a felt roof - Dad and I had fun building it one weekend over the summer. It worked brilliantly and the scope lived there for 5 years. The bulbous looking counterweight was in fact a glass jar filled with cement and painted white! I'm not sure the scope was set up very well or was very good quailty but that didn't seem to deter me and I was out every clear night that I could. Hope it's of interest.

Rob

Edited August 30, 2015 by RobertI

[jambouk]

Looks amazing. As you say, a lovely thing for a teenager to have, and great that you and your dad worked on it together.

Did you crack the jam jar away from the cement once it had set, or was the glass still under the paint? Clever idea. We forget, or rather take for granted now the ease with which we can get almost anything for the hobby now online.

Do you have any sketches, photos or reports you took at the time? Or images of you with the kit?

Lovely.

James

[RobertI]

Looks amazing. As you say, a lovely thing for a teenager to have, and great that you and your dad worked on it together.

Did you crack the jam jar away from the cement once it had set, or was the glass still under the paint? Clever idea. We forget, or rather take for granted now the ease with which we can get almost anything for the hobby now online. Thanks

Do you have any sketches, photos or reports you took at the time? Or images of you with the kit?

Lovely.

James

Thanks James,

Finding the photo certainly brought back memories, unfortunately I don't think I have any pictures of me posing with the scope which is a real shame. I am not sure I have any original observation notes but I do have some copies of our club's monthly magazine at the time and I'm pretty sure there will be some observations in there so I shall dog them out and post later - thanks for the suggestion!

By the way the glass jar still had glass around it - not a very well engineered solution really!

Rob

[jambouk]

Rob,

If you are still in an astro club and they have a newsletter, they might well be interested in a short article about your set up and any observations you made there. These sort of articles make fascinating reading.

Good luck digging around.

James

[JeremyS]

Hello Robert,

clearly your design was much better than one of my early roll-off observatories. I used hardboard panels and to make them weatherproof I used layers of exterior grade gloss white paint (kept the weather out, but the hardboard still warped). When I came to dismantle it, I donated the panels to a neighbour's Nov 5 bonfire. It went up like a flame thrower, presumably due to all that paint!

Go well!

Jeremy

[laudropb]

Very nice post. It brings back many happy memories of my own first scope.

[RobertI]

Rob,

If you are still in an astro club and they have a newsletter, they might well be interested in a short article about your set up and any observations you made there. These sort of articles make fascinating reading.

Good luck digging around.

James

  

That's a great idea James, I'm sure I could dig up enough material to make it entertaining.

Hello Robert,

clearly your design was much better than one of my early roll-off observatories. I used hardboard panels and to make them weatherproof I used layers of exterior grade gloss white paint (kept the weather out, but the hardboard still warped). When I came to dismantle it, I donated the panels to a neighbour's Nov 5 bonfire. It went up like a flame thrower, presumably due to all that paint!

Go well!

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy, I expect my construction met a simialr fate in the end, when I left home the scope had to be sold and the observatory dismantled.

[Peter Drew]

The design lives on, I've just made a similar roll off housing on wheels to cover an outside Fullerscopes Mk4 mount. 

[kev]

I had one much like that on wheels on alloy angle. It covered my old 8" fullerscope mk3. Still one of the best scopes i ever had (It had an A mirror, i bought the scope secondhand for £300 when i was 19, so 37 years ago).

Sent from my iPhone so excuse the typos!

[triton1]

That was a lot of Money back then.

[RobertI]

The design lives on, I've just made a similar roll off housing on wheels to cover an outside Fullerscopes Mk4 mount. 

  

That's great to hear, I guess a classic never dies

I had one much like that on wheels on alloy angle. It covered my old 8" fullerscope mk3. Still one of the best scopes i ever had (It had an A mirror, i bought the scope secondhand for £300 when i was 19, so 37 years ago).

Sent from my iPhone so excuse the typos!

An 8" would have been a fantastic amatuer scope in those days, especially as a 19 year old. I think my OTA may have been Fullerscopes but the mount was definitely Charles Frank. I think mine was around £250 in1980 from Exchange & Mart.

[RobertI]

Do you have any sketches, photos or reports you took at the time? Or images of you with the kit?

I managed to track down some observations I made at the time as published in 'Apollo', the quarterly magazine of Clacton Astronomical Association. The sketches haven't translated very well as the printing technology used was very basic (what do you expect for 35p?) and I think my FOV calculations are suspect. . The observations made interesting reading - apparently I saw an Aurora from Clacton, which was subsequently confirmed by the BAA. Hope it's of interest.

Edited September 4, 2015 by RobertI

[jambouk]

Absolutely wonderful reading! Thanks so much for sharing. You should definitely get the images and write ups re-produced in the current edition of the societies journal.

Very mature write up for a teenage. A great mix of technical description and comedy (cold feet).

It would be interesting to know how many of the objects listed in the write up are still easily observable from that site, to know how much influence light pollution has on observing these days.

Really fascinating. Thanks.

James

[JeremyS]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your reports, Robert

Jeremy

[RobertI]

Thanks James and Jeremy for your interest and kind words. I think my powers of observation and description were far better then than they are now!

Edited September 4, 2015 by RobertI

[Stu]

Enjoyed reading those Robert, great memories.

[maw lod qan]

I have also enjoyed this thread.

But excuse me while I go wipe the tears from my eyes from where I read you were a teenager in the 80's!! 😂😂

It's the 60's for me!