Scorpius

Removed the forms today and the pour looks good. I used to apply a thin coat of motor oil to the inside of forms to provide a smooth finished surface and prevent the forms from adhering to the concrete. However, my wife mentioned she had read somewhere you can use cooking spray instead. So tried it and it worked great as you can tell by how nice and smooth the sides turned out.

So the pier is set and I need to finalize the building design. It will definitely be standard post and beam construction and the bottom of the floor joists will be about 2 inches above the concrete to isolate the pier from the floor system. Finished floor of the obsy will be about 30 inches above the ground and I'm seriously considering adding a bump-out (Pod) for quick access to the scope during alignment and for other maintenance-type tasks. I do plan to have a warm room but just in case that doesn't happen until next spring, the pod will have a shelf for the laptop and a conduit routed under the floor to the bottom hole in the pier. The pod will be recessed in the obsy wall and covered with a simple, sloping, non-moveable roof to prevent me and the laptop from being covered with dew until the warm room is done.

But for now, the next task is to set some posts which means more scratching around in the dirt. Fortunately, my father in-law has a tractor with an auger which will simplify that process and save some wear and tear on my back... 

Well Friends - today the pier was finally poured !!!    Seems like it took forever from the first day when I found the 3/8” wall - 8” dia. steel pipe at the local junkyard. Then came some fabrication and the welding of extensions since it was all that I could find but was too short for my purposes. Next there was a lot of sanding and 3 coats of primer before it was placed in a 3 x 3 x 3 ft hole. Then plenty of rebar was added and the above grade forms were finished yesterday. Finally the concrete truck arrived today and Windy Knoll’s pier is set once and for all. It may be overkill to some but to me it’s the heart of my future observatory and should remain rock steady both now and in the future regardless of the type of equipment placed upon it.

Next on the agenda is Phase II – Observatory Construction...

What about lightning protection? Not so much from a direct strike but from an indirect strike nearby. After I read this article by Dr. Clay Sherrod of Arkansas Sky Observatory this has been a nagging concern and since I plan to pour the pier plug on Monday – I need to decide if I’ll embed grounding (earth) connections into the concrete plug as descibed in the article.

http://www.arksky.org/surge.htm

Has anyone here ever had any electronic circuitry (mount, cameras, etc) damaged by power surges associated with indirect lightning strikes traveling up through a steel pier or via the rebar in a concrete pier?

Thanks in advance for any guidance...

Paul

A few progress pics...

Still a ways off but looking for some ideas on a track & roller system for my roll-off roof obsy. Any info and pics of successful designs would be much appreciated as I’m trying to plan ahead so I’ll have all the parts needed once it’s time to construct the roof.

Got the conduit installed this weekend and the pier has finally been set in the hole. Then I leveled it up and installed the mount temporarily to make sure it’s aligned with the NCP. Then last evening, I hand mixed 10 – 80 lb. bags of concrete and poured 6” in the bottom of the hole to stabilize everything in the event it gets bumped during the main pour. I’ll build the above grade forms this weekend and then the truck will arrive on Monday afternoon to pour the remaining 1.5 yards of concrete. 

This sounds right and I had the same issue with my 80mm ES refractor before I purchased some extension tubes. I believe you can put the camera in the diagonal to see if focus can then be achieved which would confirm it's a spacing issue.

More Ps tricks required to stop colour wash-out:

Instead of pasting the RGB into the Lum layer and blending as colour. Do it the other way round.... past the lum into the colour at an opacity of 30%, boost saturation, then paste it in again at 50%, boost saturation, paste again at 75%, boost saturation.... you can see where that is going    Do it in little bits.

No kidding - so I've been doing it a** backwards this whole time?

Think maybe it's time to have another go at some of my old subs and then compare the results...

Thanks for the advice and specific instructions

Seems like the trick is to get enough RGB to let you adjust the color layer transparent enough for the L to show through without washing out the color.

Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask - is there a rule of thumb for how transparent the color layer should end up in PS if you've got the right amount of RGB? Are we talking 25, 50, or 75% - just wondering if there's a ball park number or is it simply dependent on too many other factors?

It is a Megrez 72, Atik 314L+, QHY5, SX wheel....

There are three micro-switches on the roof they tell me the position of the roof as in open, opening, fully open, closing, fully closed.

I also have a 3 axis gyro installed in the dovetail. That tells me what angle it is pointing at.

Believe me, I'm not taking any chances.

In fact, the all setup will be turned off (power off) when I leave for home on Sunday. 

My weather station is un-operational as I left the power supply at home (it's a waterproof 12V-5V converter). I also need to install an anti dew system in the all-sky-camera.

Once that sorted, I will fly to Germany for a week-end....

Your knowledge of electronics is so far over my head it isn't even funny. Guess I was thinking more about some kind of external force that could slam the roof down on the scope. At the risk of sounding like a broken record - first thing that comes to mind is the wind. But guess the weather station would tell you it's too windy to raise the lid in the first place. So unless something in the roof-raising mechanism fails after the scope is deployed (physical hardware connections) looks like you've got all the bases covered.

Ingenius concept and superb implementation - anxious to see some pics once it's officially up and running.

Amazing display of ingenuity and knowledge of electronics. Surely marketable to the masses once tested and refined. Just one question - is there absolutely, positively no way the roof could close electrically - or by external force - when OTA is deployed? Looking at that beautiful scope (Williams Optics?) just the thought of such a castastophe would give me the jitters!

Looks lik a solid job- I don't envy the guy who eventually has to remove it!

Doubt it will ever need to be removed since the obsy and four season gazebo in the pics will be/are located on a 160+ acre farm belonging to my wife’s parents. My hope is to spark some interest in astronomy with my grandkids so it will continue to be used by future generations. Every time I see her - the oldest keeps asking - Paw Paw, when can I see that planet with the rings and I keep telling her it won’t be long now. Of course she could still observe Saturn with the scope on a tripod but she’s still a little young to stay up that late.

Anyway, if someone ever does try to remove the pier, they better have a truck load of dynamite at their disposal because once I build something - it’s usually there to stay. My in-laws have told me this little plot of ground is mine to do with what I choose so the gazebo is my man cave although we use it for family get togethers as well. Having it close by the obsy will be nice when a hot cup of coffee in the middle of the night would taste mighty fine or a nice comfortable bed really fits the bill after a long night of astronomical adventures. There’s a bunk in there, a wood stove, a cook stove, a kitchen sink, a TV, solar powered LED lighting and various other comforts of home. This is not where my house is located - although that’s only a half mile down the main highway – which is roughly the same distance my remote site is from the same road. Only difference - you won’t see any vehicles back there (other than my old Toyota pick-up) and the only pedestrians to worry about are the deer, turkey and other wildlife. There’s no way I’d go to this much trouble if my obsy had to be built at home since there’s too much LP from neighbor’s street lights and cars going by at all hours of the night casting headlights into dark adapted eyes.

Anyway, although progress has been slow – I’ll just keep plugging along until Windy Knoll Observatory transitions from a dream into a reality…

Well, decided to go ahead and sand it down to bare metal - then gave it 3 coats of primer to protect it from the weather until the obsy is under roof. Next is to trench in the conduit to the warm room then try to figure out how I’m going to get this beast of a pier in the hole.   After that I’ll build some forms to extend the pier plug about 12 inches above the ground. And then finally it will be time to pour some concrete so I can get this obsy build underway...    

Worked all weekend and got the legs and baseplate welded to the bottom of the pier. Also cut a hole near the bottom to route cables down through and then out into an enclosed area beneath the floor. This is where I’ll install 110V power for the mount and anything else that needs it. The below floor area will be accessed through a trap door in the obsy floor. This way there will be no cables to trip over since the only wires/cables will exit through the owl’s nest before connecting to the mount, cameras, etc. The conduit from the warm room will terminate inside the pier at about the same level as the bottom hole so I can either route wires into the below floor compartment for connection to USB hubs, etc. or I can continue them on up through the pier and out the owl’s nest.

It needs to be this tall (about 8 ft) because the floor of the roll off roof obsy is going to be about 30 inches off the ground. I’m doing this to get the scope a little higher - which should help me see lower on the horizon - and also should put it high enough to see over the roof of the warm room which will be constructed at grade level. Plan to use a standard height door between obsy & warm room - which will swing into the warm room eliminating any height issue if it were to swing into the obsy. The door will open to a short flight of stairs (about 4) in order to make the transition in floor level. The pier height will be 36 inches above the obsy floor.

Said I wouldn’t start a build thread until the pier was set in concrete but after working like a dog all weekend to finish the fabrication, I decided to go ahead and go for it. Knowing me - I’m sure progress will be slow however, progress will be made little by little and I’ll post updates to this thread as I go...

You may see some logging equipment in the background but that’s a story for another day. Just suffice it to say – I’ve got some friends who are helping me expand my horizons... 

Totally ridiculous price if you ask me!!

I agree - Don't know what I was thinking  

Worth of 500 dollars?!? 

In my opinion hell no, never, not even close.

I made most of my observatory`s basic structures with almost same amount of money. I have some images of my pier at my blog, there is some building phases also http://frostlandobservatory.galleria.fi/blog/4/Astronomical+Observatory+construction+Part+1:+basic+structures/ Pier is constructed from a scrap metal pipe and old barbell weight, I just removed all rust and painted it, drilled holes for my Eq8 mount. It has been working perfectly for 3 years for now.

Nice observatory and website BTW. Guess a I got a little caught up discussing my future plans and failed to mention that...

Thanks for the response and yes they do seem cost prohibitive so I'll need to re-think the pier to mount transition. Currently in the planning stages but have scheduled a week off in mid-May to get started with the goal of at least completing the pier sub-base and mounting the pier extension. Thanks to a friend at work - think I've found a good piece of scrap pipe for the pier extension which has a flange with holes all around for bolting it to the concrete sub-base. Have been debating if I would start this year and it looks like I will and just hope I can get it under roof and functional before cold weather sets in so I can use it this winter.

I'm not new to construction - but always seem to over-engineer things - so that will be something I'll need to guard against during this build. The obsy will be on the same site as a four-season gazebo I built over the course of several years and below is a picture of that structure just prior to completion (meaning the steps you see were temporary and have now been replaced). I'm excited to finally get started on a permanent observatory as the constant setting up and taking down of equipment is getting old...

I'm trying to make a decision on the type of pier I want to construct for a roll-off roof observatory. After a lot of research, a concrete pier seems the most simple but the thing I'm unsure about is the transition from concrete to mount (Currently the Celestron AVX). Unless you put in a steel pier attached to a concrete "sub-pier" most of the DIY ones seem to be poured concrete and incorporate the "rat trap" design for the transition which must work reasonably well since so many are constructed this way. However, I want the ability to upgrade the mount at some point in the future without worrying if bolts will line up or drilling new holes in the pier and fooling around with industrial strength epoxy. Their mount specific adapter plates seem to fit the bill but my two major concerns: #1- The plates are machined from aluminum rather than steel and #2- There's only 3 mounting bolts for the main base plate as opposed to the typical 4. Of course another concern is price but since it seems the pier is the heart of the observatory, I'd be willing to make the investment if it's a stable solution that would prevent headaches upgrading in the future. I'm looking at building a 12" pier - even though that's probably overkill for the AVX and an 8" SCT - but this is the kit I would need.

http://www.pierplates.com/products_2564.html

Homepage - http://www.pierplates.com/index.html

Anyone ever use this modular design and if so what are your thoughts/recommendations? Are they worth it?