saac

Here's some very good well priced mounts which would be ideal for a school observatory. Either of these would allow you to have remotely controlled operation and would be fine for visual/astrophotography. 

SkyWatcher AZEQ6-GT

iOptron CEM 120

Depending on your budget there are less expensive options and as always more expensive    If you want a mount and telescope package then maybe something like Meade or Celestron would be worthwhile exploring . 

Meade LX 90 ACF

Celestron  Nextstar Evolution 8

Do you know what type of thing you want to be doing with the observatory - general visual of say planets/deep sky,  perhaps leading on in the future to astrophotography. Do you envisage perhaps eventually doing any scientific work such as spectrometry or measurements.  You wan't to give your setup room to grown but equally there would be little point in investing in a very capable mount/telescope if you are never going to use the capability.   As far as the telescope is concerned I personally would go with 8 inch Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain  (give the pupils decent visual experience of say the planets and the likes of the more visible nebula).  I would be tempted to invest in the mount first (by a little future proofing) and perhaps save a bit on the telescope itself  - here was my first serious scope (still used today) .  It really all depends on your budget and what your aims are . Hopefully something to start the process off - what a fun project you have ahead of you, good luck. 

Bresser-Messier NT 203

Jim 

Jim 

It's not so much the telescope but the mount that you need to consider.  What's your total budget; there will be other costs along the way  - software & hardware?

Jim 

Hi AC wouldn't any of the standard smart phone brackets do - the type of thing that attaches the phone to the eyepiece for photography.  All you would need to do is attach it remote from the eyepiece but of course it would need to be aligned just like any finder .  I may have missed the point of what you were looking for though, apologies if I have.  

Smart Phone Adaptor

Jim 

It looks like the bayer matrix = have you de-bayered the image?  You can de-bayer either using starlight software for the camera or using a processing software, you may need to experiment to find the correct  matrix pattern. 

Jim

Dave that is looking really good, well done.  Have you decided how you are going to size the truss tube  - by calculation or practical method ? I took a rather Heath Robinson approach to mine and focused on the moon by sliding the upper OTA up and down the tube until I found the sweet spot  (focuser at mid travel) . Looking back it was less than elegant; he jig I used was heavier than the telescope !  Good luck with the rest of the build you will be itching to get first light. 

Jim 

32 minutes ago, jambouk said:

Thanks both. The LightGrapher thing is good; it just took time to work out how to get it to run on my laptop, I can only get it to run with FireFox for the moment and only with the inbuilt camera on the laptop, not another one via USB, but will try again tomorrow.

 

James I run it on MS Edge and it woks ok.  I also just use a bog standard web cam so I can have greater freedom to position the camera but the laptop cam works fine as well. You may just need to update some drivers (uses Adobe Flash on MS Edge)

Jim 

James there is a very simple piece of software (freeware) called LightGrapher which is made exactly for this purpose - no need to muck about with arduino or anything else.  You can even use it with a simple web cam; here's the link for the download and suggested activities. I've used it in school and it produces excellent transit graphs. Depending on your model set up you can experiment with effect of distance to star, size of planet, transit time etc. For the star I used a globe style lamp and for planets I had a snooker ball,  a computer mouse ball and a polystyrene ball rotating round the globe on a simple turntable.  The planets were placed on an arm which allowed the orbital distance to be varied. If it would be helpful I can photograph the setup but it won't be until Monday. 

http://www.planetarium-activities.org/shows/sp/lightgrapher

Globe Lamp - IKEA

Jim 

Well Louise you know I bet you'll derive as much excitement and pleasure at getting meaningful images from your restricted location as you would had you had the perfect location.  I often find it's  the challenge itself that makes things exciting.  You should maybe think about doing an astro holiday  where you can put your "combat" honed astronomy skills to test in better conditions.  If you can get images like that from through a window in Glasgow think what you could do  in Tenerife or with the likes of Olly's help in France where the rain isn't  vertical and the clouds don't touch the ground. I am genuinely impressed Louise.   

Jim 

Lousie, given the conditions you are working with what with the sky glow from Glasgow I would be very impressed if I had captured those.  The nebulosity in M45 is clearly visible did you use a filter? I really admire your perseverance with the restrictions you have, well done,  you put me to shame

Jim  

Planet is an arbitrary classification , the Universe does not care. I can't really get excited about an artificial label , it is what it is irrespective of whatever label we happen to place on it.

Jim 

11 hours ago, old_eyes said:

That is an interesting question and one I have puzzled about. Surely a concrete block is also strongly coupled to the surrounding soil. Yes it has greater mass, but the resonant frequencies would still be high compared to the vibrations caused by footfall. I would guess that induced vibrations in the pier from walking nearby would be no worse for the ground anchors than for a concrete block.

Ground movement would be a problem for both anchors and block, but may affect the block more due to a greater surface in contact with the soil, particularly at the base.

i am sure there are some civil engineers around who could put us right, but at the moment I still have a nagging feeling it would work.

Unfortunately, I was already committed to a standard concrete block before I bought the ground anchors and saw how easy they were to install. If I ever put up a second pier, I will certainly give it a try.

I agree it would work. When using a concrete block however the normal practice is to isolate the concrete block from the surrounding by digging an oversized hole then infilling the gap with some non homogeneous material (sand, pea shingle foam etc).  I was wondering if when using the ground anchors something similar may be needed particularly if the setup is for imaging while attended.  Without question the frequency response from the anchors would be different from that of a concrete block. How different that response would be , better or worse , I have no idea. It would however be a simple matter to isolate the ring of ground anchors by a similar method to that used when using a concert block.  In any respect if the setup is non attended  (remote imaging) the concern over vibrations is somewhat reduced. I personally think your ground anchor suggestion is a serious alternative to the concrete foundation and it would be great to see somebody trialing it.  

Jim 

In terms of securing the pier to a stable base then I see no reason why it would not work; the idea in principle is similar to steel piles used to stabilise and provide foundations in civil engineering projects. Like you say perhaps say 4 of those anchors driven into the ground and then topped with a metal plate (bolted or welded onto the heads of the anchors) would then form a secure  base for your pier.  You would of course want to think about  isolation if you intend to image so you don't induce vibrations in the setup as you walk around the pier. If you are remote imaging or visual then the isolation of the pier should not be such a concern.  Nice idea but is it an easier (less expensive, quicker, less demanding) solution than a conventional concrete pad?  I guess it would certainly be quicker.  I think  you would also want to be convinced that the ground is not prone to movement (heave or subsidence ).  Be interesting if you go ahead with it to hear how you get on  

Jim 

Cue the slightly out of focus and ever so shaky video - not much different from my astro photography work

Jim 

Love it  

Jim 

2 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

I've bought two books, quantum universe and six impossible things, so I'll be sorted for the next few weeks, lol. Well, if I can get my head around it, or would that be through it both at the same time, lol. Thanks again everyone. Be prepared for questions when I don't understand things. 

Good luck with the reading Nigella, be prepared to read chapters several times for it to click. I found myself flicking through the same chapter again and again. 

Jim 

Nigella I would avoid the maths altogether unless it is something you particularly want to do ; I'm going to attract some fire here but it's largely impenetrable probability  based overlaid with its own language and branch of mathematics.   If what you are looking for is an good overview then I would recommend the following book  as a starting point "Six Impossible Things - the quanta of solace and the mysteries of the subatomic world" by John Gribbin.  Very accessible but still challenging -  he looks at 6 different interpretations of Quantum Mechanics to challenge the famous Copenhagen Interpretation.  These different interpretations are themselves all of course flawed in their own way but offer the potential of solace in understanding of what is truly counter intuitive to us.  The discussion of each interpretation is set against an examination of how each explains what goes on in the double slit experiment  ( the experiment with two holes as it was referred to by Feynman).  No equations and very well written - nice little hardback book - was my holiday read

Six Impossible Things - The Quanta Of Solace

Jim 

Peter for the school's 16 inch dob I bought some rip-stop (nylon) material from Amazon then had a local seamstresses sew it up.  When I spoke to her about she laughed and said its basically a big sock !  The rip-stop is not stretchable and so far it's been working fine.  Material cost and sewing cost all came in less than £30 from what I remember. 

Jim 

I remember watching it in the 70s as a kid and while not maybe to understand what they were talking about I knew I loved it.  Patrick was different from a normal presenter" you could tell that he knew what he was talking about and that he was passionate about his subject. The title music alone (At the Castle Gate by Sibelius) alone had me hooked. 

Jim

That is a really neat looking build, looks really good, well done.

Jim 

5 hours ago, Kronos831 said:

Um , just saw your guys s replies and i have to say that im a little baffled..im about to beggin the 10th grade and have not yet learned calculus,i am thinking of entering a Panhellenic astronomy contest in February (The questions will have to do with The stars,the globe,the solar system,the universe,galaxies and recent astronomy. News )and know a bit about everything, that meaning that i know the basic functions of things, just want to get in a little deeper in the math part.(For any of those who know  DrPhysicsa/YouTube/), i would prefer a mathematical level close of those to his cosmology video playlist.just begginer math with a tiny bit of calculus

In that case then you could try some of the GCSE Astronomy books. The General Certificate Secondary Education (GCSE) is a high school certificate offered in England usually taken by pupils aged 16 or about.  Im not familiar with the course myself (it's not run in Scotland) but it may be a good start for you.   The course specification will give detail on what the course covers. 

Jim 

GCSE Astronomy Books Amazon UK

GCSE Course Specification (Edecxel)

23 minutes ago, Gina said:

 Not sure why this needed a manned lunar landing though.

Purely political Gina. But aren't you glad they did.  

Jim 

Sounds like you may be looking for some undergraduate text books.

Jim 

3 minutes ago, Gina said:

It was an enormous risk landing on the moon - the ground could have been metres deep in dust where they landed.  I didn't see any mention of finding out what the surface was like before they landed.  As it was Neil Armstrong had to choose a new landing site from that predicted due to lots of steep craters.  That mission was so very close to disaster!!  The technology just barely worked with a couple of worrying moments.

I believe they had a notion that a successful landing was in order of 50:50.  They really did not expect it to work first time - quite remarkable and a testament to "the right stuff".  I wonder how prepared we are to accept that level of risk with our modern plans for revisiting the moon and beyond. I really do wonder how we would cope with failure.  The  generation that brought as the moon landing was a little more battle hardened. 

Jim 

Re question 2 JOC the fuel load requirement inst really determined by distance  - remember Newton 1 means they coast to the moon with the engines off.  The main fuel load requirement comes from the escape of Earth orbit (Lunar insertion) , retardation to moon orbit and then landing and escape from the moon orbit (Earth insertion) , and finally retardation to achieve Earth orbit & decent. These calculations are then essentially one of energy (speed or rather impulse) and not distance.

Jim   

Not the video I was thinking of but it conveys the same idea.

Jim