ShrewView

Sorry. Not posted for a while. I've made decent progress and got a rubber roof on and cladding on the sides so getting close to finishing but started new job at the end of September and not had as much time or taken as many pics as i should have done. The ground screws were good, and much easier than concrete foundations, though probably no cheaper. It may depend on your ground. mine is quite heavy soil with clay beneath but i didn't have much difficulty in screwing them in. Stony ground might be tough though?

Last week I made some progress on the walls. It was pretty hot work and I had to find the shade where I could, hence the old garden parasols, although by evening I did get some shade from a neighbour’s tree. I’d originally intended to just fix the wall sections to one another but after putting the first two up I decided it wasn’t going to be strong enough and added another piece to make a corner post. This seemed much firmer when screwed together. The wall sections were pretty quick to assemble and having the floor down meant I had a nice clear flat space to work on (the garage being full of more wood and the usual tat) Having got three sides up I added the wooden rails that will support the tracking. The roof should run off to the north and there should be a fold down flap to the south side to give a clear view. Yesterday was the first day I could do anything this week and I added the fourth wall as well as some bracing to the corners of the frames and this has stiffened up the frame a lot. It’s been a lot cooler to work in, but I’ve had to add a tarpaulin, as the last few days there have been showers and although it’s all treated wood, I want to keep it as dry as possible while there’s no roof. Hopefully I’ll make a start on the frame for that this weekend. One thing I’ve not yet decided is how wide to make the door. It may sound odd, but I keep thinking maybe make it wider than a standard door to accommodate storing a big dob in there at some future point. How wide do other people make theirs? The other thing will be how much of an overhang to give the roof on each side? It's going to be a pent style roof sloping one way and that side will have guttering beneath to channel the water to a series of water barrels. Perhaps the other don't need much of one at all? Something else for me to ponder over a glass of wine tonight.

So, confession time. Earlier this year I started ordering and gathering materials in order to build an obsy. For some time, I’d been pondering this and even posted a thread on here about whether to build from scratch or to convert an off the shelf shed. Then along came lockdowns and difficulties in getting materials and I had to put it on hold. The original plan was an 8’ x 8’ with a roll off roof, situated in the darkest spot I have in the garden. I soon concluded that this wasn’t going to allow much room for expansion and so this evolved to a roughly 12’ x 8’ build. Having looked through many of the fabulous builds on this forum I’ve hopefully picked up lots of ideas and doubt I’ll be showing anything new to the community but thought I’d share how far I’ve got and, hopefully the future progress until it’s done. Work got underway in late June, clearing the site, and laying out the footprint of the building which runs north to south, with a pier to be sited toward the southern end. I made an early decision not to lay concrete foundations and instead have chosen groundscrews. I used 9 and these were pretty easy to put in as long as you can avoid existing rocks and concrete in the ground, and raise the woodwork about 4 inches off the ground. They are easy enough to level, as you just back them off or screw in a little further, and the base frame seems really firm. I also decided to ensure the walls when built sit on the subframe and that the flooring fits within this outline so I can lift them later if needed without having to cut anything. In mid July I put the pier foundation block in, which was warm work, and got to the point where i could loose lay the floor and try out a tripod at the height that the pier will be so i could work out the wall heights i want. While i had it there i also popped a scope on and tried it out under the stars. Was a really good feeling and made the effort to date worth it. When i was happy with the base i screwed and nailed it all properly but will leave the floor loose until the end as I've got the pier to build yet, but it's walls first!

Is it cloudy nights per year in the UK? 😀

Made it. Although as mentioned above it's too cloudy to tell.

Its looking really good and you did really well in that heat. It'd be too much for me to work in I'm afraid. Love the colour too.

I use mine on one but it does feel a little on the limit sometimes. So far so good though.

Lovely. I was viewing these with my 8"cc the other night and I was trying to see how many craterlets i could see in Clavius. You've picked up more detail than visual alone. Conditions weren't the best though so bet you'll do even better on a good night.

Wow. I must try not to complain about my sky if that's the case. If they meant 7 without the 4 corners that might be a sign of darker skies perhaps?

Great stuff. I saw the moon was looking good and was hoping to observe tonight but had to go out in the end, but I did catch it last night and as you say there's so much to see that it doesn't get old at all. Have you tried the lunar 100 challenge? It's a good way to check off some of the interesting features.

That really is good. Loving the colours and the detail. It belongs on a gallery wall somewhere. Thanks for sharing.

Missed it going in but just seen it come back out. Moon looking great tonight.

Very nicely done. I love these as visual targets and think you've really captured them. Thanks for sharing.

Jut seen this item online and thought I'd share. Some more nice places for future trips. https://a.msn.com/r/2/AATwwlK?m=en-gb&referrerID=InAppShare

Lovely write up. Sounds like you were rewarded for your persistence. I'd have probably given up. I really like the Leo triplet but like you I sometimes have found the third member either really elusive or really obvious. A good indicator of conditions, and great if you can squeeze them in the same field of view.

Beautiful.

I have to say I'm not an imager by any stretch but i think your idea would definitely work. I had some neighbours around last night to show them a few things visually which they enjoyed but as I know one of them is interested in photography I popped my canon on one of the scopes and took at 30second unguided shot just to show how much the camera can pick up that we can't see directly. They were really impressed. So with your gear and expertise a few short choice shots would I'm sure go down really well and as you'll have your bins handy you can challenge them to maybe even find the objects you're shooting. Good luck.

Very Ingenious. When you started this thread and said you had a novel idea costing less than £100 i imagined you'd bought a caravan from a scrap yard and cut a hole in the floor and roof for the pier to run through but this looks pretty good. Just hoping it stands up to the windy weather this weekend; we once had a polycarbonate 8x6 greenhouse blown across the garden! Let us know how it goes.

For one reason or another it’s been a while since I’ve done much Astro even though we’ve had some good clear spells. So, when my next-door neighbour recently said they’d love to bring their two young lads to have a look through a telescope and with last night being forecast clear, I set up two scopes and I invited them round for a quick tour of the sky. Thinking about it I should have planned it a bit better as there were lots of things I wished I shown them, but in the end we just did a few of the obvious ones like M31, M42, the Pleiades and a few other nice bright stars groups. They’d heard of “Beetlejuice” so was able to show them that and they seemed to really enjoy it all with remarks like “ooh their just like little diamonds” and "ooh I can see how you'd get hooked on this". They also discovered the trick of averted vision for getting a bit more from the faint things. The biggest wows and oohs for them though were reserved for the surface of the moon and the fact that they could see the unlit part of the disc and the surprise when two satellites crossed the field of view when they were looking at Orion. After they’d gone, I settled down to a spot of peaceful observing myself and just spent some time around Orion and seeing how many stars I could count with unaided eye. It was good to be back out there!

I've just cast my vote but was looking for another box 😕 The one that said "Frustrated as its always cloudy!"

It was my old 8.5inch newtonian. Had it since about 1985 and still gives me some great views on a good night. Can't get through the clouds we had last night though 😠

One to add to my list too. Thanks

Just packed up and come in from a lovely session as the dew was getting a bit too much to deal with. Started with Saturn but moved to Jupiter just before the Io transit. Had some really good views of it most of the way through, although about a quarter in, some high cloud dimmed it considerably before clearing to leave some very good seeing at times. The 8.5 showed quite a lot of belt detail and at the mid point the shadow looked just like someone had drilled a hole through Jupiter to reveal the black of space beyond! Finished with a quick look at the moon and a browse along the terminator. Great to get a decent session in after the recent run of weather here. Hoping tomorrow can deliver too. 🙂

Stellarium is showing me that io and its shadow transits Jupiter's disk tonight from around 11pm and then tomorrow eve (29th) we get two for the price of one with europa and ganymede crossing the disk whilst the GRS follows close behind. A great opportunity for all you imagers!

Wow. I get a real sense of depth with that image. Almost 3d in parts!