Gina's Observatory

[Gina]

I used something similar to this x 4 - Rubber Castor Wheel Fixed-75mm Diameter, DT65477 | eBay UK

To run my shed off.

Yes, though depends on the weight.

I use posts and screening on 2 sides to protect the scope, the third side is protected by the shed rolled off

Yes, one thing I had in mind.

Problem with a tall shed (my design is about 7ft) is clearance of view over the top. Though admittedly it's only a small section of sky. This diagram is a rough indication - I have 20 degrees above the horizon blocked by buildings and trees.

[Gina]

One problem with RO shed and bigger floor is that the RO rails would be good for tripping over in the dark. I'm thinking a RO roof with enough room in the shed would be better. For one thing there can be permanent fittings in the shed including a bench for computer etc.

[Tom How]

You can spend as little or as much as you like on these things.

You mentioned fence panels earlier. As an example from the bottom end of the scale, in 2004 I made an "observatory" out of 8 half high (6 by 3) fence panels, 4 fence posts, a couple of sheets of ply and a corrugated plastic roof on a simple wooden frame for less than £150. OK it was cheap, quick and simple but here in 2011 it is still serviceable. Admittedly I've improved it a bit over the years.

I paint the thing with gunky fence preserver stuff about once every 2 years. The upper fence panels hinge down over the lower fence panels.

It certainly doesn't look like it contains expensive equipment (what a coincidence!! hahaha)

I also have a bungalow - so I cheated horrifically on the roof - it flips open onto the bungalow roof. If anybody fancies a right laugh....

[JamesF]

I just wonder if I could still use the pig arc roof - would 6ft width be enough? I think it probably would be. The advantage of the pig arc roof is that I've got it.

Our pig ark is pretty heavy. You may well need much stronger walls to support it than you would given, say, a pent roof, which could have a very simple structure. Metal roof structures are great for collecting condensation too.

James

[beamish]

That's just CLASSIC Tom !!

[Gina]

You can spend as little or as much as you like on these things.

You mentioned fence panels earlier. As an example from the bottom end of the scale, in 2004 I made an "observatory" out of 8 half high (6 by 3) fence panels, 4 fence posts, a couple of sheets of ply and a corrugated plastic roof on a simple wooden frame for less than £150. OK it was cheap, quick and simple but here in 2011 it is still serviceable. Admittedly I've improved it a bit over the years.

I paint the thing with gunky fence preserver stuff about once every 2 years. The upper fence panels hinge down over the lower fence panels.

It certainly doesn't look like it contains expensive equipment (what a coincidence!! hahaha)

I also have a bungalow - so I cheated horrifically on the roof - it flips open onto the bungalow roof. If anybody fancies a right laugh....

Very clever

[adamsp123]

A picture paints and all that, here is a link to my setup with some piccys etc.

http://stargazerslounge.com/diy-observatories/106187-my-roll-off-obsy.html

[Tom How]

Just goes to show that simple and cheap solutions have their place sometimes . I'd certainly second some remarks above regarding height - I spend more time in the "shed" with the roof on than with the roof off. But I do have a particularly bad case of the "inadvertent tweakings" .

Actual imaging is done from the "warm room" aka the bungalow. Astronomers do not help the imaging process with our damp breath not to mention bashing into things in the dark (e.g. the cat) so we are best kept as far removed from the actual imaging process as possible.

[Gina]

Our pig ark is pretty heavy. You may well need much stronger walls to support it than you would given, say, a pent roof, which could have a very simple structure.

Yes, agreed they are heavy.

Metal roof structures are great for collecting condensation too.

Ah yes, that's true - good point. Oh well, it was a thought. Probably not a very good one. A pent roof is certainly the easiest.

[Gina]

Just goes to show that simple and cheap solutions have their place sometimes . I'd certainly second some remarks above regarding height - I spend more time in the "shed" with the roof on than with the roof off. But I do have a particularly bad case of the "inadvertent tweakings" .

Yes, agreed. I may well wnt to spend time in the shed tweaking too.

Actual imaging is done from the "warm room" aka the bungalow. Astronomers do not help the imaging process with our damp breath not to mention bashing into things in the dark (e.g. the cat) so we are best kept as far removed from the actual imaging process as possible.

I agree there too. I'm hoping to control my imaging from the bungalow. And I'm pretty good at bumping into things in daylight let alone the dark

[Gina]

My thoughts are beginning to crystallise now. A pent roof, being much easier to construct than an apex type and I've abandoned the pig arc idea (too heavy and too drippy). The side walls will be 6ft east side and something like 7ft west side and split about 4ft above floor level. The top part of the walls and the roof to roll back. The running rails being about 4ft above floor level (I say floor level because the ground slopes north/south).

I might just go for a warm room where the roof section rolls off onto. It would provide extra protection and avoid having running rails sticking out into thin air. It would also provide extra stability for the rails.

Thanks to Darren for his ideas :- http://stargazerslounge.com/attachments/diy-observatories/59033d1305640885-anyone-got-nesting-observatory-roof-design-observatory.pdf

[Gina]

This seems to be what I'm aiming at ATM. I'm thinking of exterior plywood on studding or 47x22mm battens for roof and walls. This is cheaper and lighter than alternatives it would seem. The roof would be covered with roofing felt for extra protection, the walls painted or varnished. The obsy area just under 8ft (2.4m) square and the warm room a bit smaller. Height 6ft on the east side and 6'6" on the west side. It seems that 6" drop in 8ft is sufficient slope for a pent roof. I think 6mm exterior plywood should be thick enough with reasonable framing.

I think we have a couple of 5"x3" beams something like 15ft long, plus a number of other odds and ends but the main bulk I'm planning to buy from Wickes and combine it with the cement and ballast in the bulk delivery.

For the services, I'm buying 25m of 25mm MDPE pipe for the conduit to take signal cables and 25m of 2.5sq.mm steel strand armoured cable (I considered 1.5sq.mm cable but the 2.5 is not an enormous amount more and more future-proof). These will be in separate trenches separated by a foot or so to help stop mains borne interference getting picked up by the signal cables.

[Tom How]

you mention signal cables - plural - what signal cables are you planning to run aside from a bit of Cat5 for the network?

[Gina]

you mention signal cables - plural - what signal cables are you planning to run aside from a bit of Cat5 for the network?

I'm thinking ahead. It's possible I might control things from the house rather than having a computer in the obsy. In which case I might run USB too. OTOH if I have a warm room, a computer could go in there. I can get a the MDPE 25mm pipe cheaper for Wickes than any other alternative I can find.

[Tom How]

I would not try running USB over any great distance.

Put an old cheap computer base unit in the shed and wire everything into that. Run Cat5 network to the house and then remote control the "observatory computer" from your laptop or whatever from inside the house.

If you want to access the computer when you are in the obs, then take the laptop with you!

It is far better to have a simple dedicated computer in the obs with everything setup and no danger of having its config mucked about with. Then you can use any computer or laptop to log into it.

With a dedicated computer in the obs you are free to plug as much stuff into it as you like - for example an extra webcam attached to your finderscope - so much easier than bending the neck!

Heck of a lot less effort than making a "warm room"

Don't have an old computer? I bet half the folks on here have an attic full of suitable old machines which they'd pay you to take off their hands.

[Gina]

Yes I have an old desktop I can use. I have XP Pro and Linux on it. I've been using it for webcams for my weather web site but I'm planning to use another desktop for that. I have a tendency to collect computers.

I too was thinking of using a webcam on my finderscope, in fact I have done. Or rather, I made up a finderscope out of a webcam (less lens) and an old 35mm SLR camera lens.

[JamesF]

I think I'd go for 3x2 for the studding. It is going to have to carry the weight of the roof, after all. I built a 10x8 tree house for the children a couple of years ago and 3x2 seemed about right for the framing for that. (I tend to work in imperial for this scale, I'm afraid. We only learnt metric at school, but my dad, an engineer, mostly worked in imperial and I got used to both. I find myself using metric for small things and big things, and imperial for medium size things. Sometimes I even combine the two at the same time I put a couple of diagonal braces in the walls too, but I was cladding it with shiplap. If you're cladding with sheeting then they're probably not necessary. I'd also be tempted to work to 16" or 400mm centres for the framing spacing as that fits 8x4 sheets neatly.

It *might* also be worth considering putting external doors on both the obsy and warm room, without a connecting door. That way you won't have have to give up space for the door to open in what are quite small areas in real terms. Either that or look at using a sliding or bi-fold door, perhaps?

Lovely drawings, too. You've done this before, haven't you? It saddens me to admit that I find creating drawings on a computer incredibly difficult and it tries my patience massively. I find it so much easier to work with pencil and paper. I really must be doing something wrong.

As it happens, one of the uses I was going to put my obsy to when I get around to building it is to put all the computery bits for my weather station. At the moment I have an anemometer up a disused BT pole not far from where I want the obsy and thermometers, barometer and RH meter elsewhere, but they're 1-wire and I'm pushing the reliability of the cable runs a bit, so moving everything closer together definitely looks like a good plan (at which point I'd also set up the solar meter and look at building a lightning detector).

James

[Gina]

I think I'd go for 3x2 for the studding. It is going to have to carry the weight of the roof, after all.

Yes, I think I'll use 3x2 studding for the walls, the price is not much higher than 2x1 (ish) - 47x22mm. Has a number of advantages. The roof has a span of nearly 8ft - that wants something that won't sag.

(I tend to work in imperial for this scale, I'm afraid. We only learnt metric at school, but my dad, an engineer, mostly worked in imperial and I got used to both. I find myself using metric for small things and big things, and imperial for medium size things. Sometimes I even combine the two at the same time

I too tend to work in a mixture of imperial and metric as you will have seen Being older, my instinct is imperial but computers are not very well geared up for fractions (eg. One and seven eighths inches is awkward - 47mm is much easier). In the olden days I had a typewriter with all the fractions on, in eighths. OK I could write 1.875"....

It *might* also be worth considering putting external doors on both the obsy and warm room, without a connecting door. That way you won't have have to give up space for the door to open in what are quite small areas in real terms. Either that or look at using a sliding or bi-fold door, perhaps?

Been thinking about the space taken up by doors myself. With a large enough obsy area I might not need a warm room and could just have a door on the obsy opening outwards.

Lovely drawings, too. You've done this before, haven't you? It saddens me to admit that I find creating drawings on a computer incredibly difficult and it tries my patience massively. I find it so much easier to work with pencil and paper. I really must be doing something wrong.

I have problems too. I use the Linux command line app XCircuit. Apart from having circuit symbols, this easily draws straight lines, rectangles and circles plus Bessier curves (think that's right). Also, dashed or dotted lines. Will fill shapes, a number of different colours, easy copy and paste etc. Oh, and do text. Only disadvantage is that it has some very strange commands, unlike any other program I've seen. I also use the GIMP to crop and scale the image and also to convert from Postscript format to PNG for posting.

As it happens, one of the uses I was going to put my obsy to when I get around to building it is to put all the computery bits for my weather station. At the moment I have an anemometer up a disused BT pole not far from where I want the obsy and thermometers, barometer and RH meter elsewhere, but they're 1-wire and I'm pushing the reliability of the cable runs a bit, so moving everything closer together definitely looks like a good plan (at which point I'd also set up the solar meter and look at building a lightning detector).

That's interesting - I was thinking of doing the same. I too run a weather station (well, 2 really, one is a Fine Offset type I bought from Maplin and the other, like yours is 1-wire (one I'm developing myself). So I was very interested to see you also use 1-wire. I have weather sensors very near where the obsy is going too.

[nightvision]

Watch out when selecting an old PC for the obs, been testing a few I have spare. Some of my older machines can't manage high USB traffic levels even though they may be USB2; especially noticeable on webcam throughput. Motherboard combos are cheap enough.

[Demonperformer]

This thread is fascinating. Don't know if I will ever get round to building an obsy, but the planning that is going into this one would certainly give me a good grounding. Thanks.

[Gina]

Watch out when selecting an old PC for the obs, been testing a few I have spare. Some of my older machines can't manage high USB traffic levels even though they may be USB2; especially noticeable on webcam throughput. Motherboard combos are cheap enough.

The machine I'm planning to use is a Pentium 4 HT and I think it's 2.8GHz. It has 8 USB2 connectors so well endowed in that respect. I also have another P4HT I'm not using ATM so I could put two base units out there if one was struggling. Maybe one running Linux and the other Win XP Pro.

This thread is fascinating. Don't know if I will ever get round to building an obsy, but the planning that is going into this one would certainly give me a good grounding. Thanks.

You're very welcome If my efforts for myself also help others I'm very happy to share the information

[JamesF]

The machine I'm planning to use is a Pentium 4 HT and I think it's 2.8GHz. It has 8 USB2 connectors so well endowed in that respect. I also have another P4HT I'm not using ATM so I could put two base units out there if one was struggling.

I can see you'll be ending up with a secondary consumer unit out there before long. I am probably going to do that so I can run separate lighting and power rings with the appropriate RCD protection built in. It may be overkill, but I much prefer to have proper wall-mounted 13A sockets rather than trailing multi-gang sockets and it also means I can put a couple of weatherproof sockets on the outside wall if I want to power kit outside whilst, say, I have the scope in the obsy tied up doing imaging.

If you're going to keep PCs in the obsy I think a warm room makes a lot of sense. Cold and damp will surely not do them any favours.

James

[George]

That way you have some protection from the elements...

I think this would be the roll off sheds weak point, a ROR does offer protection especially when windy <--- more important when imaging.

BTW Gina just realised your that Gina from Sandaysoft • Index page

We have the same weather station

[George]

I can see you'll be ending up with a secondary consumer unit out there before long. I am probably going to do that so I can run separate lighting and power rings with the appropriate RCD protection built in. It may be overkill, but I much prefer to have proper wall-mounted 13A sockets rather than trailing multi-gang sockets and it also means I can put a couple of weatherproof sockets on the outside wall if I want to power kit outside whilst, say, I have the scope in the obsy tied up doing imaging.

If you're going to keep PCs in the obsy I think a warm room makes a lot of sense. Cold and damp will surely not do them any favours.

James

Yes I have a 2 gang consumer unit in mine with RCD protection, 1 gang is lighting and the other is for sockets and the garage door roof opener.

I'd consider a consumer unit in the observatory as essential TBH

[malc-c]

BTW Gina just realised your that Gina from Sandaysoft • Index page

We have the same weather station

LOL - small world - I hang out there as well... Cumulus rules