Graeme

That's a great build. The insulation gives it a futuristic look! And the Alexa control is a nice touch!

Regards

Graeme

Been up north this weekend so haven't done much observatory build. but I have today taken up the base timber, filled the gaps in the mortar so that the damp course sits flat on it and cleaned up and repainted the outside edge of the base timber. I cut the four pieces of the top timber section but then it started raining! 

I bought some paint on mastic to stick the damp proof course strip to the mortar but I need to cover up the mortar to let it dry out before I do that. I could use the damp proof strip to keep the rain off. And I bought some M10 Rawl bolts to add additional bolt it down strength but I might be over engineering it now! Hoping to get these bits done this week after work now there's a bit more light in the evenings.

Then I need to cut the uprights to length. I'll probably put the mount and telescope on the pier to double check the wall height before I get the saw out. I did a scaled drawing showing wall height with the telescope at an altitude of 20° and I measured the height of the whole thing when parked horizontally +100mm. So I'm vaguely confident my design height will be ok, but there's nothing wrong with  double checking!

Graeme

I was enjoying the images in the World Nature Photography awards but a fellow photographer pointed out that in the last image there's a view of both the Milky Way and the Aurora Borealis in the same shot, taken from Grand Teton Peak Wyoming, US. It's an excellent image but to see what looks like the central section of the Milky Way one would have to be looking South from Wyoming and to see the Aurora Borealis one would need to be looking North. Is this image possible?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2023/mar/06/from-furry-families-to-fungi-the-world-nature-photography-awards-in-pictures

Wet concrete calls out for having initials and construction dates scribed into it!

I'll have to sort out an @powerlord style plaque for the door later!

13 hours ago, powerlord said:

the motors and belts just were not running cleanly - I will fit a rain sensor. only then takes me 30 secs to run out and close roof if it alerts me.

Plus, I doubt I could autoclose, as the scopes will extend beyond the roof and I wouldn't trust a rain sensor to not get confused with heavy dew.

stu

 

I thought the same thing about automating the roof, I'll only be 20 feet away and since the roof will be locked when shut I will need to be out there for all opening and closing anyway. I'll probably have a rain sensor that can alert NINA's Safety Monitor to send a message to my phone if it rains and I've nodded off on the settee! Good luck with the end of March target.

Regards

Graeme

Their podcast is good too!

Graeme

Well there was a bit more concreting to do to hold the base section to prevent lateral movement and uplift. There's now a bag of ballast at two opposite corners. Now I need to take up the base section to lay the damp course before I start on building the timber frame. The 4"x4" corner uprights and the 4"x2" for the top section have been stained and are ready to go. 

On 24/02/2023 at 17:14, powerlord said:

 

At base of walls just now, there are gaps at bottom of panels. Above base so not a water risk.. More thinking of ants, etc.. One the one hand, could leave and it might aid air circulation, making cool air come in base, out top. On the other hand, sealing all around may keep it less humid, and puts the control on where cooler air comes in to my hands - might later add low level input fan like I did with obsy mk1. Thoughts?

 

That's what I am going to do. Two fans at high level, controlled by a temperature sensor, relay and Arduino as stage 1 over temperature control and two fans at low level for stage 2 over temperature control. 

Great to see the results of your hard work!

Your M101 is a wall hanger!

2 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

Line the walls with ply/osb or similar.

All looks fine and dandy now on delivery as everything's tight and freshly made/treated , but when it gets to summertime and everything's dried out and shrunk somewhat the sturdy looking shed will become a different and unstable wobbly thing that will have you frustrated/annoyed.

This is coming from someone with nigh-on 40 years experience of designing and building sectional wooden buildings not just some random thought by the way.

Good advice. Would you insulate the walls or put a membrane behind the OSB? I've watched videos of people using one or the other or both or neither!

Phase one civil works is now finished. (After I've had a bit of a clean up!) Next stage is the wood work which I'm hoping to get on with this week end.

That turned out really well Arnaud. And for a good price too! I hope you get many years of use out of it.

I would say go for the EAF.

Regards

Graeme

And here it is with the shuttering struck.

Looks like we didn't use the poker on the rear section! But the cube and pier are as solid as a rock.

Going to start laying bricks tomorrow. I'll pug up the holes in the concrete with the mortar!

This is definitely the most accurate spirit level I have ever used!

I need to get an M6 tap to fix the bolts that came with the Baader adapter to the brake disc.

Mine is the PPA so I will need to look at using the variable 12V for the flat panel controlled from NINA's advanced sequencer. Cheers for that.

The USB doesn't need to connect to the pc in the house when using Teamviewer. Everything is connected to and controlled by the remote pc. 

Thanks again for resurrecting this thread Chubster, I hope you're finding it as helpful as I am!  

11 hours ago, chubster1302 said:

Apologies for jumping on this thread.

Glad you did, it's applicable to my situation. I asked on the Pegasus forum if my Pocket Pegasus could control the 12V outputs separately but my question remains unanswered. I would like to turn my flat frame light box on at the end of the session. I should have asked here! This thread tells me only the Ultimate can do that. 

In answer to your question, I do as Scotty38 advised, My mount and cameras are connected to a pc in the garage via a Pegasus Pocket Box and I remote to that from my indoors pc, in the warm, using Teamviewer over the internet. I use NINA, CPWI, PHD2 and the Pegasus software all running in the garage and controlled from my front room with no problems.

Regards

Graeme

That's a fine looking pier Arnaud. And a very nice disc, it looks like the one I have!

Good luck with the first light.

Are you going to build a roll off roof shed around it?

Those Telegizmos look like the solution. The pain of having to carry my SCT from the garage to the patio and set up every time was the inspiration for my roll off roof build.

And at the end of last year I finished radiotherapy for stage 3 prostate cancer. So I'm with you on the feeling tired thing! 

I hope you're feeling good enough to get some quality astro viewing and astrophotography in.

Regards

Graeme

On 07/02/2023 at 09:15, iapa said:

There is ducting in place, so just needs pulled through with a snake.

 

Do you have a couple of handy grand kids to help you pull in some £6.18 SWA and ask the Electrician to just gland and terminate it?

Looking good Arnauld. The gravel was a good idea.

Regards

Graeme

I was a member at Greenwich for a few years and I did their two year foundation Astronomy course too. So much history there, it is a brilliant place.

Can I offer:

1. The 28" refractor at Greenwich. Home of the Greenwich meridian. I've looked through it four times!

2. The 72" Leviathan at Burr castle in County Offaly, Ireland. The biggest telescope in the world at the time. It resolved the spiral nature of M51. I went for a visit for my 60th.

3. LIGO. A whole new paradigm of observing.

I'm not familiar with the Ioptron mount. I use NINA with my CGX mount. I connect the mount to the Celestron CPWI planetarium software first to load the ASCOM drivers. Then I fire up NINA and connect everything. How do you load the ASCOM drivers?

What happens if you select a different star from Polaris for your manual focus target? Does the mount slew ok?

Once you have imported the Stellarium co-ordinates, what happens if you select slew from the drop down instead of using slew and centre? Slew and centre will do a plate solve. Which plate solve software are you using?

Regards

Graeme

The concrete pour went well today. We filled the base cube and vibrated out all the air bubbles. 

Base cube filled, pier pipe filled and brake disc studs inserted. There wasn't time to wait for midday to line up the shadow of the studs with due north! But we lined up a string line to the marker I put in a couple of weeks ago.

Job done! We filled in the trench along the fence line which will be the support for the back of the observatory. Apparently I have to wait a week for the concrete to cure before I can put the mount on top of the pier. The jet wash came out to clean up the patio block work. I'll be putting the Baader mount adapter on the brake disc, putting that on the studs and levelling up this weekend. Then I can finish the pipework back to the garage and start thinking about the observatory build!

Massive thanks to my good friend Tony for some excellent concreting work today.

11 hours ago, FrenchyArnaud said:

is it needed? How to do it? 

No, but it's one more thing to aid image quality. You could shutter around the top 6" of concrete and take it out after curing. Or you could build a raised timber frame.  

Looks like a good start. 

Are you going to isolate your underground block from the surrounding slabs?

Regards

Graeme