Rusted

The [destructive] power of the wind rises as the cube of velocity and is often extremely localized. The danger is when the wind can enter a building and inflate its surfaces to destruction. Suction on corners and flat roof surfaces is often very damaging. A double garage roof, made of hefty, old fashioned, corrugated steel, unpeeled, lifted and flew hundreds of yards over the intervening houses [including ours] and lots of 40' tall trees before landing in a tight roll in the field behind us. It had rolled against the corrugations! Not with them! We only lost a quarter of our roof while the farm behind us was almost ripped to pieces when the wind got inside the giant ports of the attached barns on either side of the house. Wind speeds were about 35m/s or 70-75mph. IMO: A ROR ought to be held down with at least four angled turnbuckles into very serious eye-bolts through heavy timbers. The building ought to be bolted down to a heavy slab. Though I used lots of buried, pyramidal, concrete, carport anchors myself. Cladding it in plywood using decent screws all over the framework will provide serious triangulation against building distortion and gaps opening up. Ship-lap and T&G boards with corner braces do NOT provide the same degree of geometric stiffening as sturdy sheet materials. Though they can be easily added on top of the plywood if the appearance of boards appeals. Fortunately I have access to decoratively grooved 4x8 plywood in 9 & 12mm thickness which I used [in 12mm] throughout my two story building, using hundreds of stainless steel screws into the 2x4 and 2x6 framework. My shed next door using this technique and the same materials has survived unpainted for two decades. Both buildings entirely DIY, working alone. I used fierce, double sided, galvanized, bulldog, truss jointing 'washers' on all the joints of the shed. Screwfix sells them, amongst others. The dome has shown no signs of lifting in any wind so far. It has eight restraints on the base ring to stop it lifting. The Welsh coast was a ten year battle against the wind while I still lived there. I doubt much has changed.

Thanks for the suggestion. A hair drier might be cheaper, save electricity bills and need only used when necessary.

It's not enough to try and keep a closed space dry. The metal parts are subject to thermal inertia. Which means masses of condensation every time the temperature rises quickly and the metal lags behind. The same holds true with thick glass in an OTA of course. My refractor objectives get misted up inside after a cold night when I open up early to the warm sunshine. Even though I cover them with protective saucepan lids overnight they don't offer any "insulation."

Great post, MKHACHFE! But M29 has an excess of super-cooled MEH? Why was there nothing in the papers!

Nice prom. Sham about the filter! I make my 90mm refractor, Solar foil filters from cut down, strong plastic, bleach bottles. Which are always a tight fit on the dewshield and almost reach the objective for extra security. Mind you. I have forgotten to cap the 9x50 finder before now. Even tried to use it briefly. So I removed it completely. I should have made a Solar foil filter for that too. So it could be used.

For magnification purposes, the Binoviewer usually adds about 100mm, or slightly more to the focal length due to its glass path length. Which it promptly steals from the usual focal point. Assuming you can reach inward focus, without sawing lumps off the main tube or adding a Barlow, then you are very lucky. I only rarely use anything shorter than 20mm on my 150/1200 and 180/2160 refractors with the binoviewer. A 2x WO Barlow works wonders with 26mm & 32mm EPs. Which means 13 & 16mm equivalent EPs without a Barlow but I can still reach focus. So about the same magnification as your 15mm. The resulting magnifications are fine on the Sun and Moon and I find the longer eye relief, of "longer" EPs, offers much greater comfort when using the binoviewer.

Imagine their relief when they discover it only contains a nocturnal hobbyist with [very] strange habits.

I have recently acquired a "so-called" Japanese "tripod" stepladder. In welded aluminium tube it is very light but has a very wide base to the steps. It feels ridiculously safe compared with any other stepladder I have ever used. I have been trimming our 20' high boundary hedges from the top so you get the point. I own at least five other stepladders and have fallen from most kinds over the decades. Fortunately I usually land on my head. So have avoided serious injury so far.

For Lunar and Solar I wouldn't be without my [dealer replaced] TS binoviewers. The first was badly misaligned. The absence of floaters and relaxed viewing is like flying over the surface rather than staring through a narrow pipe at it. I use a WO 2x Barlow [much better than TS GPCs] and secondhand pairs of Meade 4000 EPs. Mostly 32, 26 & 20mm. The 40mm aren't so binov friendly IME due to excessive eye relief and very small field of view. The Sun in H-alpha shows even texture right across the disk in the binoviewers while providing suitably high powers. It requires a conscious effort with a single EP to see any detail [at all] in the center of the sun in H-a. I was afraid of these high powers before experience proved it was easily possible. Thank you, St. Peter. Proms are much more fun and intricately detailed in the binoviewer. Mere secondary artifacts with one eye. Every detail is laid bare in the binoviewer. I'm too far north to see any planets from here. A decent focuser and sturdy mounting are essential for binoviewing. My big Feather Touch made it a real pleasure. My previous 2" focuser always wanted to hurl the binoviewers down the observatory ladder and spit on their grave!

Nicely done Francis! Love those joints!

Check Gong-Ha first for large prominences before you go out. GONG H-Alpha Network Monitor Make it a favourite on your PC's or laptop's bookmark bar for quick and easy reference. Then look around the solar limb for signs of the prom as you tune your PST collar. The position of the Sun in the field of view may change the visibility of a prom depending on the PST etalon's own sweet spot. I move the sun around the field of view once I find a prom for the best view against the darkest possible background. I get the best prom views at exactly the same tuning position as maximum surface detail. Yours may need a different tuning point for each. Plan B. Still no change? Check the little drive screw is still present under the rubber tuning collar. Don't scratch your PST while lifting the ring gently with a fine screwdriver or [better] cocktail sticks. Fierce adjustment by a weight lifter might have damaged the tiny drive screw. Plan C. If you get a very dull, dark or plain solar disk your ITF filter may be "rusted" over. My secondhand PST was like this and produced worthless views until I bought a new one from Maier in the US. http://maierphotonics.com/656bandpassfilter-1.aspx

At the risk of starting an endless argument: Modern piping is often plastic. Rural homes are almost certainly fed by miles of plastic hose. Connecting the indoor metal pipes, if any, as an earth, will be lethal and based on a lack of basic electrical knowledge. Discussions on forums, which have US members, suggests that the rules for earthing are as varied as the soils on which the building stands. I claim absolutely zero knowledge and nobody should ever follow anything suggested on a forum. Your "expert" advisor might be a trolling, psychopathic, serial killer! ALWAYS seek EXPERT advice from a local, fully qualified electrician with experience of your local conditions. Your having moved on from your own installation leaves those who follow on in a very precarious position. Which through their own ignorance, of what they only think they should trust, might easily kill them. This doesn't even begin to deal with the matter of lightning and adding extra earthing rods to an existing electrical system.

Around here earth spikes are minimum of 2m or 2.2m long. Galvanized or copper coated. There are several ways of getting them down into the ground: Manual hammering. Needs a stepladder and a helper to hold the spike straight. Hammering with a contractors large hammer drill and hollow driver socket. Keep adding water around the spike as you bang it in. It is supposed to run down around the spike. Using water pressure from a hose to a long pipe to make the hole and replace the pipe with the spike. I used two lump hammers followed by a sledge hammer as the resistance increased. Clay soil and no rocks until nearly full depth @ 2.2m. I was lucky and only hit a rock at full depth. You couldn't get a 6" nail in where I once lived in Wales on an ice age moraine. The local board replaced an old and wimpy pole transformer for us while we were there. The earths for that were several, absolutely massive, stranded cables spread out on the field and buried for probably 50 yards each. A serious cable clamp on top of a domestic earth spike, under a protective cap, ensures a long life connection. The job is strictly for an authorized electrician over here. As is all outside electrical work and most inside. I did the job while they were here, fitting new sockets indoors. The sparks watched happily as I hammered the spike in for over half an hour. Then nodded through my 2.5mmm earth cable connection to a single row of 3-Pin sockets indoors for my UK Hifi. Hum gone!

5 minutes past my bedtime in CETland. Jupiter was being occluded at intervals by the shorn grass of the neighbour's lawn. The sky was still so bright I needed skiing sunglasses with side shields. It must have been your noctilucent clouds. Haven't you heard of light trespass?

Retirement needs careful planning to avoid sloth, bad habits, weight gain and boredom. Fulfilling hobbies, regular fresh experiences, a sound diet and plenty of exercise are vital to continued sanity and good health. IMHO. "Use it or lose it" has more than a smidgen of underlying truth. Learn or try something new every single day. Every year seems shorter than the last. So make every minute count in your favour. Cycling and walking, particularly in quiet green surroundings, bring balance without much financial investment. Both burn empty calories from today's poor food & beverage choices. Exercise tunes your overall balance and general fitness. You can't afford to smoke nor drink [much] and both are targets for constant price increases and increased risk of ill health. Add up the ways that you can multiply your gains from every, low cost activity: Increased physical fitness, social and mental well being. Walk or cycle to the shops and carry the stuff home in suitable cloth bags, a saddle bag or a rucksack: Provides: Physical exercise, sharpened reactions, memory exercises, money saving, lowered blood pressure, a social life if you smile often enough and fresh experiences. Make several journeys a week. Or every day, if need be and do avoid main roads. The car needs its rest far more than you do now. Swimming? Bowls? Golf? Metal detecting? Photography? Map reading? Exploring canal footpaths? Researching local history? Voluntary work? The library can save considerable expense on hard back books and magazines for research and hobbies. Charity shops for cheap but quality clothing if you're "picky." Above all, avoid online forums where ye olde pedants offer free advice and therapy for fellow, Traveling Twirleys! Enjoy? If you can.

Hi Olly Tidiness is the work of the devil and must be avoided at all costs! "Rich" is a relative term. It must be nice to have rich relatives. The "humble" plywood, offset fork is a superb refractor mounting. Particularly for those with long and heavy instruments or no money. These are otherwise impossible to mount well without a second mortgage. Or having a hideous collection of scrap metal leaning against the workshop wall "just in case."

I carry my Monarch 8x42s on my daily walks [up to a couple of hours] and find I don't ever notice the weight. Trying to carry my 50mm, or larger binoculars, soon gets both tiring and boring regardless of using wide straps. So they stay at home or in the car boot. Binoculars should provide pinpoint star images right across the field of view. Good luck with that! For astronomy you won't need to carry the binoculars far. So bigger is better. I rest my elbows on the car sometimes but this severely limits the altitude I can view. So think in terms of a sun lounger and possibly make or buy a parallelogram support. A sun lounger with arm rests can take a crossbar for your elbows to rest on while you lie down and look up. Tripods and pan-tilt heads just get in the way beyond a certain altitude and are a literal pain in the neck. So don't bother. Unless you have very dark skies you'll soon want much more than a pair of binoculars for astronomy. A smallish refractor with a star diagonal for comfort would be a good first choice. A 90-100mm refractor is a nice instrument. My long, Vixen 90mm offers sharp and bright views and is satisfying on the Moon and brighter planets. Don't ignore the secondhand market for a suitable refactor just to dip your toes in the hobby. You could buy an OTA [complete telescope tube or Optical Tube Assembly] and put it on a DIY altazimuth fork mounting. Made of plywood, with plastic pipe, trunnion bearings, just like a cannon. You put the fork pivot on a firm wooden post or pipe in the garden. Such a simple and steady mounting will be much more fun than an using a wobbly, equatorial mounting on an equally wobbly tripod. Most people think they need an equatorial mounting to be serious. They don't. The equatorial mounting just gets in their way. Even rich people put gorgeous telescopes worth tens of thousands of £/$/Euros on simple, plywood forks for the amazing stability they offer. Perhaps that's how they can afford their amazing telescopes? Instead of constantly upgrading equatorial mountings.

I go upstairs, at bedtime, to look down on the Moon and Jupiter from a very tall stepladder. It's difficult to sleep after that much excitement!

Glue some fine sandpaper or fine emery paper to a flat piece of plywood or thick piece of glass. Then smooth and flatten the surfaces using short strokes.

Thanks, Pete. I just wish my efforts looked less artificial and more "wispy" if you'll forgive the "technical term."

James, you're doing it all wrong! You do the swimming and let SuperGirl build the observatory. You know it makes sense.

Thanks. The trick is in the leverage applied by the relative spacing of the pivot, counterweight and BB/crank/friction roller assembly. I can't recommend the friction system highly enough. It has absolutely transformed my ability to rotate the dome completely effortlessly. Though I haven't applied Rodrigol's Standard Pinky Test yet. I'll report back. I nearly walked away from the entire dome building project in tears once it was fully clad. I'm sure other obsy builders must have hit that wall with the increased weight. It really was that bad! Manual pushing or pulling was killing my ageing, RSI damaged shoulders and elbows! Despite frequent "cranking," on most clear days ever since, I have now fully recovered. An ROR friction drive would be much simpler to achieve. Sincere apologies for hijacking rodrigol's thread.

As was my own [obviously opaque] response.

Not when you openly share your great wealth [in observatories.] Besides, Peter has hardly dented the built up area V total landmass.

Talk to the relevant authorities and ask for their advice on what might be possible. Not what you only think you might get away with. Make their lives easier with relevant images and an aerial map of your situation and to show your worst obstacles. Have a list of "must haves" and "wants" for open negotiation. If they object ask what it is they are protecting that your project will undo? Show flexibility where necessary but remind them gently that building has been going on for centuries before they came along. Smile! My 3m/10' rural carbuncle offers instant gratification of every observing or imaging whim. Dark, natural wood below and painted, silk Sage green, faceted dome to match its surroundings with minimum impact. I used to observe and image only during transits or eclipses before I built this. I was a telescope maker rather than observer. Now it is a rare day I don't spend hours out there. Imaging, observing, adjusting, experimenting or constantly improving. The more time I spend out there the cheaper it gets per enjoyable hour. Finally it makes real sense to spend money on new kit. It never did before! How many active hours do you presently get per year out of your own total investment in equipment? Fortunately Denmark relaxed the rules over outbuildings after The Crash which nearly destroyed most trades. I avoided the boundaries and other obvious restrictions and fortunately, have no overlooking neighbours. Viewed from a distance looking west: The very occasional, farmer's view: