Rusted

Good luck with getting the dome. Don't bury it! Height is everything when the planets are low. You can image provided the wind is not blowing directly into the dome. I peg a doubled wind break net across the lower half of the observation slit if the wind is a problem. Morning solar imaging is certainly possible with a Sou-westerly. I do it all the time. You get a nice sense of shelter in a dome. Allowing you to observe and image in mere moments from making the decision to go out. Close up in seconds when you feel the rain in changeable conditions. I would no longer be an amateur astronomer without my [raised] dome. It completely transformed my retirement.

I built a 3m/10' Baltic Birch, plywood dome three years ago. Despite using the "finest" marine sealer, at £40 per tube on the joints, my dome now leaks like an inverted sieve. Successful plywood domes usually lead to fiberglass overcoats. The cost is horrendous, time consuming and smelly. The result is an uneven, matt, chopped strand appearance. Not the high gloss you had hoped for. Not unless you make a mold and lay up your own gores or larger segments. Domes limit your useful space if you go for a round building. Or an octagon as I did first time around. A rectangular building provides far more useful room. Unless you have unbroken views to the east, south and west then observatories are only useful for refractors. I like domes and I am presently converting an agricultural dome into a 14' Ø observatory. Six months in and I am still struggling [daily] with the 3D shutters. I am retired and can throw countless hours at the project in the privacy of a detached, rural, back garden. Peter Drew's barrel domes, at The Astronomy Center, are a far better alternative to a hemisphere. Flat sheets of aluminium, with a nice gentle curve and lots of room from the square footprint. They need rolled hoops for the edges. I couldn't get a local engineering company with a machine bender to make the hoops. Woodworkers could make a Baltic Birch ply copy of these all metal, arched domes. The appearance is entirely a matter of taste. My wife didn't want a huge one dominating the back garden.

The Vixen 90/11 has a nicely sharp objective. Mine is used for solar white light views with a Lunt wedge these days. I have used it on a video tripod, on the tops of local hills, for taking afocal snaps of several early morning, eclipses and transits.

90/11 Vixen 90M. Bought secondhand. 125/15 Home made including the objective. 150/10 iStar H-alpha objective solar telescope in home made tube. 180/12 iStarR35 objective in home made tube. Mounted on a home made GEM in a home made dome.

The finned tube design needs bolting down but has a much smaller footprint. Nothing to trip over in the dark. If you have access to a scrap metal merchant you may be able to find a heavier base plate for a finned pier. Many scrap metal yards have ox-acetylene cutting torches. They may cut down a bigger plate if you pay a small sum of money. A legged pier can stand on hard, level ground without bolting down. However, the legs can get in the way in a small observatory.

Nature abhors a straight pillar. Demand they remove their atrocity immediately. Nature uses taper to safely carry vast wind loads into their root ball foundations. Triangulation uses exactly the same principles with much lower weight and material cost. The Panther and other triangulated piers, avoid the weak spot at the ground. The triangular braces [legs] bypass the pier itself. Though most have the severe handicap of needing to be light enough to carry. You don't have that need. Use your 8x8 pipe and fix triangular "legs" as large as you can live with. No thin sheet at the base. You don't need it. Welded "tabs" and steel strip, or pipe, for your triangles will exceed your wildest dreams. I prefer four triangular feet to three. The radius to the tipping line, between any two, of four feet, is huge compared to three. Do a google image search for "telescope pier" for inspiration.

Kamik snow boots. Easy to slip on and off thanks to glossy "fur" lining. Rated at down to -50C and you won't topple even in a 100mph wind. They can usually be found heavily discounted at online dealers. Black rubber foot and brown suede above. Cosy!

I have used heavy duty drawer slides outdoors on my heavy, plywood, dome shutters with success. Three years and counting without obvious deterioration so far. I have used the same drawer slides with even larger and much heavier shutters on my latest 4.3m Ø dome. That said, the movement is minimal at only 50cm extension. So the overhang is tiny compared with a shed roof. I would not hesitate to use tracks and rollers. Make the roll-off roof, supporting structure into a decorative rose trellis. Or add any other climbing plant which happily tolerates your local climate. How your partner learns to tolerate two posts and a trellis is none of my business.

I use PhotoFiltre 7. Draw a circle. Then enlarge it with Manual Settings. Until it just grazes the inside edge of the sun's disk. Stroke and Fill the circle with black. Job done.

I would never leave a telescope unattended out of doors in daylight. You never know who might become curious and take look at where the bright light is coming from. There was a danger with antique, Herschel, solar wedges. They passed the blinding, focused light out of the bottom of the open, prism housing. Straight into the eyes of any passing child who glanced upwards. Unless a solar foil, full aperture filter is well secured it could blow off in a gust of wind. I make mine from close fitting, household cleaning containers. They slide well down over the telescope's dewshield with a close fit. Let's be careful out there!

Despite being a solar imaging obsessive I still haven't built a solar finder. The field of view through my 150mm f/10 with GPCs [working at up to f/20] is absolutely tiny. Not much larger than a group of sun spots. I still use the shadow of the second telescope as my finder. Make the shadow round and the sun usually appears on the computer monitor via the camera. The other day I was checking the 150mm for internal dewing and deliberately pointed it slightly away from the sun. Looking into the objective I could see the brightly focused sun falling on every baffle. My home made telescopes are always fitted with thin, blackened, aluminium baffles. To suggest that the sun's light will not fall on the baffles is slightly silly. IMHO. A few seconds of non-driven drift or inattention will easily put the bright spot on all of your baffles. So I would err on the side of caution. A long dewshield will help to block off-target sunlight. Try to find some thin, "Funky Foam" in black from a crafts shop. It's lovely stuff to work with using a pair of scissors. Roll a tube at least 3 times the aperture in length. To fit snugly over your existing dew shield. Electrical tape will hold it in a tube form forever. The foam weighs almost nothing. Lighter than paper and much longer lasting. It won't change the telescope's balance much but may catch the wind. In the "old days" dewshields were always made this long. I too have set fire to a temporary cardboard aperture stop in the dew shield of my 150mm from internal reflections off a D-ERF filter. I'm talking about real flames inside the 10" Ø aluminium dewshield! The smoke was filling the dome and making me choke! There I was blaming our pyromaniac, waste wood burning neighbours.

A very clean design Paul! Congratulations!

Domes are difficult to build unless you have lots of practical experience. Making them waterproof in the long term is even more difficult. It is easy to cover them with tar felt but that attracts the sun's heat and makes them very heavy! Glass fibre can be laid over a plywood dome but adds enormously to the cost. It also leaves you with the rough, laid up surface on the exterior. Most people prefer a high gloss. If you have the funds I would recommend a ready-made GRP dome with its own rotation track and shutter. Pulsar do a "low wall" design in two sizes. 2.2m and 2.7m Ø. Bung one on top of a suitable shed and you are ready to go: Pulsar 2 2m Short Height Observatory Dome Or, try building one of Peter Drew's arched domes. Made from gently curved, flat sheets of aluminium. No 3D curved gores! Plenty of head and shoulder room too compared with a hemispherical dome. https://www.astronomycentre.org.uk/index.php/2-uncategorised/18-current-state-of-progress-at-the-astronomy-centre

Thank you all for your warm encouragement. Like all of us, I am a martyr to the seeing conditions. Not to mention the foibles of my dodgy PST etalon. Jack of all trades. Grand master of none.

I was capturing through thin cloud all day. Even worse seeing conditions as AR2887 flared around lunch time. Having walked away in frustration I came back to see massive flaring on the monitor. 12.27 [CET] 10.27 [UTC] I have added a couple of later images to show how transparency improved in the afternoon. With AR2887 still showing signs of flaring.

David Your image shows lots of fine detail but [forgive me for saying so] it is inverted. I captured several large flares in H-alpha just south of AR2887 yesterday.

Thanks and to all the others who responded.

I can't recommend dark materials for summer shade. We bought an awning in the form of a dark blue, tent "flysheet" on very tall, tent poles. During a mid 80sF [low 30s] heatwave it was almost intolerable to be under it due to the heat radiating downwards. The value of the shade provided was minimal. White, lightweight tarpaulins remains a safer choice for shade. This material seem to be thermally neutral and inexpensive, though short lived. I certainly wouldn't trust it against rain in my own experience. Not even when the material is brand new. Made of non-woven polythene I think.

I have an assortment of inexpensive hats. I always wear a baseball cap for solar imaging. Keeps stray light at bay. Several fleece caps [single a double thickness] for spring/autumn imaging & telescope making. Cycling skullcaps are excellent for extra ear covering in a cold breeze. [GripGrab "Aviator" is a personal favourite in medieval peasant style. Soft & warm, stretchy and non-itchy. "Trapper" style fur or insulated caps with ear flaps for freezing + wind. Some are a bit mean on neck length at the back. Try before buying. Some "fake fur" is itchy! Never got on with balaclavas. Even at -10C. Prefer the "Aviator." I need to be able to quickly shed excess warmth around the neck. I might do some hand planing or sawing. Or struggle to lift "half a ton" manually. Down jackets are essential wear for hanging about outside in winter. IMO. I have an ancient, oversized, down jacket in black. A dirt cheap, charity shop buy is my winter overalls for building projects. Though it never ventures beyond the rural, garden gate. Never follow fashion for observing. NOBODY can see you in the dark! And if they can, then you are doing it all wrong!

Well done. A difficult subject to pull off successfully but you managed it with "flying colours." Both subjects are at different distances and finding best focus quite a challenge. "Infinity" only applies with short focus lenses. I would have stopped the lens right down [for maximum depth of field] and hoped to avoid camera shake. Any handy surface can be used to steady the camera if a tripod is not available. Aligning the wind vane with the moon is not one of those things you can plan in advance. Lamp posts, sign posts and street furniture can help sometimes. What are the chances of anything useful coinciding with such an alignment?

My wife spotted the crescent moon resting on the horizon from an upstairs window. By the time I had grabbed my camera and fitted the long zoom the moon was only a half a crescent. Snapped though the double glazed window at ~45° in the nick of time. 1/2 second, f6.3, ISO6400, handheld on auto. Lumix G9 Leica 100-400 at maximum zoom. The double glazing reflection is less obvious on this image of the three I captured through a narrow gap. Image untouched except for resizing from 5k original to 1k:

Who needs Lunar obiters when we have Neil? Many of us would be delighted with a narrow shot of Plato of that quality.

Thanks.

Constantly being teased by racing cloud, thermals and white sky. Incursion into the umbra from SE. Highly mobile filament to the north of the AR. Best of the bunch so far: * EDIT: Added second image from a capture through the trees.

Nice set of images.