Gina

Yes, that's how I built mine, except that i used screws rather than nails.

I have Amazon Prime. Must have a look sometime. Need to fix my tower first - the sound connection has disappeared inside!

You build cowboys?? 🤣

ATM I dare not buy anything as I have my car going in for MOT on Wednesday and no idea whether it will want any expensive repairs. Looking at the weather forecasts it seem unlikely that I shall want to go out to the observatory this week, though you never know.

Been out to the big shed and had a look at my timber stock. Plenty of it but not very accessible.

I'm far from sure I would be up to digging a trench all the way across the ground. Yes, the ideal solution but probably impractical for me. I might have managed it 8 years ago when I built the observatory but I no longer have the strength or energy/stamina I had then! 😟

The rain has stopped and I've been out and measured the distance from the concrete path to the observatory (yellow route). More than I thought - 7 metres. As an interim measure I may buy some of these. Two sets would give me a path 500mm wide at a reasonable price.

I've been thinking about what causes the mud bath. Yes, water obviously, but maybe more than rain that lands on the area. With a considerable area of sloping ground rising to the north of the area with soil that doesn't have good draining, I'm thinking that I really need to dig a draining ditch just above the area concerned and including the observatory, taking the water out through the boundary to join the ditch on the other side. This might stop the flooding of the observatory foundations too, "killing two birds with one stone". This is an aerial photo taken many years ago before I built the observatory, which shows the concrete areas and the rising grassed area above the area concerned. The observatory is in the bottom corner of the plot. The back porch on the RHS of the bungalow doesn't have a door now but in many ways that would be a good way to get to the observatory. In fact the windows I built for the south end have rotted and need replacing so I may look at adding a door.

I need to measure the length of the yellow path shown above but it looks like 4 or 5 metres. 4 of those grids is over £800. I don't think I fancy covering the area shown below with gravel or whatever either.

Those look very good but way beyond my price for the area I want to cover. Thank you for the suggestion.

One thought is to make up a raised walkway on the yellow route on this diagram probably combined with rough paving around the SE corner of the sun lounge

With the quagmire that is the area of ground that is between house and observatory, I'm thinking about this again though I won't be able to do anything until the weather improves. I have more ideas than so far discussed such as a raised walkway to stay above flooding and mud. I would still need to prevent the growth of weeds/grass/nettles beneath the walkway and also make it non-slip in spite of wet weather and frost/ice.

I too think James may be right.

Most experimenters have been called stupid at the time but without them many things would not have been invented or discovered. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but I feel there's a place for us mad scientists/engineers!

Actually, I guess the biggest Earth bound telescope was used to image a black hole. OK so this was several telescopes but a collection of smaller scopes is often considered a single large one.

I reckon I have a PST - Pretty Small Telescope - a short lens!! 🤣

We know Flat Earth is a fallacy but he did build a steam powered rocket powerful enough to carry a person. That's pretty darned clever. Hats off to him. Shame he had to die in his attempt!!

He had it right on the previous attempt so I guess it was an equipment failure. Unless he changed something. Guess we will never know.

WOW that sure looks like some beasty!! Good luck with the refurbish.

Superb, Steve. Love it.

Lovely.

I had a 12 on 120 film camera many years ago. We weren't "metricated" then so it was 2¼" square.

Thank you. Yes, I think the good mount and fairly good PA are the reason.

I think it's a pity ZWO don't make a mono version of the ASI533 with it's square sensor. So much more sensible for astro imaging. It would save turning the camera between landscape and portrait mode for framing.

I use my lenses at full aperture.