michaelmorris

Latest progress with the observatory.

Grass stripped off and armoured cable layed in trench. 

Then whacker plated a good layer of hardcore to make a firm base.

Thanks for the advice folks.

The roof will have a gutter, so shouldn't be too much of an issue with rainwater.  The fence panels can simply be lifted out, so again shouldn't be too much of an issue with maintenance.  The shed will be clad in larch, which as far as I can find out needs no annual paint with preservative.  The whole structure will sit on pressure-treated bearers, probably 15 or 20 cm high. 

A year ago I bought a small cottage in a Worcestershire village.  This weekend I have a mini digger being delivered so that I can start work on building an observatory.  😁  I haven't had one for nearly 4 years. 😟

It is planned to be a scratch-built 2.75m X 2.4m roll off roof with larch cladding and a metal roll off roof.   I'll keep you posted on progress.

First job had been to mark out the approximate dimensions and position of the pier so that I can dig the trench for the armoured cable for the observatory.

On 31/07/2021 at 10:31, icpn said:

Unfortunately clashes with Kelling star party and I will be there.

Ditto, what a shame. 

Another Malvernite here.  Welcome to SGL.  I love the sketches, keep them coming.

I'm hoping to be there.  As with others, this will be first (and possibly only) trip away all year ☹️.  Due to a huge confluence of poo over last year I had completely lost my astronomy mojo.  So I've decided to keep it simple and just bring my C9.25 to do some visual double star observing.

I'll be in a large blue airbeam tent on pitch 361.  Do pop by to say howdy if you want.

I have a very slow internet connection.  The video just got more and more behind the audio and then everything froze.  Had to give up 😧

On 12/03/2020 at 18:11, wimvb said:

Alcohol dissolves the oils that protect the skin, and will leave you with dry skin. Use a hand/skin moisturizing product after the alcohol.

I have doubts whether sanitizers would kill all viruses on your skin instantly on contact.  I suspect it takes a few minutes to have its full effect.  With that in mind, it might be worth waiting for a few minutes after using sanitizer before using hand cream.  

The news is that unfortunately the site did flood.  They are now clearing up the mess. ☹️  

Lovely shot and nicely framed.  Thanks for sharing

Here is the main hall.

I agree with the OPs sentiments.  Perhaps they could have two sections - one for images taken in the UK and a seperate section for images taken from foreign soils.

Due to the somewhat inclement weather, tonight's meeting of Worcester Astronomical Society at Lower Smite Farm is cancelled.  We will hopefully be able to get Mark Gibbons back to give his talk on Black Holes sometime next year.

Just messaged Martin at IAS.  I've emailed him and he's arranged a swap to an alternative talk, as I already saw Damian give this talk at the Practical Astronomy Show last year.

I'm thinking about going on a trip to the US to visit the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and possibly other space-related sites whilst I'm over there.  With the state of my finances, this would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime trip.   Given that I would travelling alone, it would be nice to share the experience other like-minded spaceflight nuts!  Does anyone know of any tour operators who organise such trips for spaceflight enthusiasts?

Thanks

I've tried registering with the Astrocamp website with a view to possibly booking on their September 2020 camp. 

http://astrocamp.awesomeastronomy.com/

I tried registering, but it said my email was already in use, so I guess I registered in the past.  I tried the forgotten password link and it said I was a blocked user!!!  I've looked on the website and I can't see any contact details.  Any ideas how I contact them to get this sorted out?

For a quick guide to strange noises.

Grunting = hedgehog or badger (or possibly wild boar if you are in the Forest of Dean)

Grunting + crunching sound = hedgehog eating snails

Barking = Fox or Munjak deer

Screeching = Tawny Owl

Twit/Twoo = Tawny Owl

Unspecified rootling sounds = otter, marten, hedgehog, deer, badger, or wild boar (Forest of Dean only)

Very regular, very quiet chirping noise = the motors on your mount!

Repetitive bong sound = PHD has lost the guide star.

Low despondent grumbling sound = astronomer moaning about clouds or security lights.

Loud scream = USB failure leading to loss of camera connection (again!)

I second the view that the easiest way to reduce the effect of cone error when goto slewing between targets is to do a multipoint (>2 points) alignment.  Having at least one of the alignment points approx 180 degrees away from another alignment point should maximise the cone error corrections provided by your mount.

15 hours ago, Tim said:

We are going over to Winterfest at Kelling in November should you need to get a big scope fix..

See you there in just over three weeks time.

3 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Short of having the next one in Tenerife no way to be sure of good weather.

Now there’s an idea.

1 hour ago, AstroGnome said:

Hang it.

I'm going to Six Penny Handly, Anyone want to join me?

I may join you.  How much is it a night?

Gutted!  Thanks for the rapid update and thanks for all your hard work.

5 hours ago, AdeKing said:

I align the North arrow of the compass and rotate the body so the long edge is aligned E-W then I have a piece of string between the E and W legs of the tripod. Once the string is parallel to the side of the compass, its normally close enough for me, but I do visual only. 

This is a tip a saw on @Montana blog when I was searching how to polar align in daylight for solar observation.

Thanks. 

I can't find any blog entries for @Montana, do you have a link?

4 hours ago, scrufy said:

Once I finally got it right I put sharpie marks on the tripod rings and little dots on the ground. Its in the back yard so I got 3 large walkway stones and a couple bags of sand and leveled that first.

Thanks.  However, my enquiry relates to setting up on a new site, not an existing site (something I didn't make clear in my original post).

I much prefer to get my tripod, mount and scope set up in good daylight so that I can hopefully maximise my time imaging. However, I often find that my initial stab at pointing the tripod facing north using a compass is often so far out that I end up having to move the tripod and mount with everything on it to get the mount close enough to north to then use the azimuth adjustment bolts to get it polar aligned.  This often then leads to the tripod not being level.

Is there anyway to get this initial rough alignment in daylight more accurate?