Gina's Observatory - The Build

[freelander86]

Nice image Gina...

Im a regular visitor to Dunkeswell (the airfield)... Often stay at the lakeview. The terrain is so undulating there are plenty of "dark" areas for some good night sky imaging.

Still Honiton doesnt give too much light pollution...

[spaceboy]

Some great skies you have there Gina.

[Gina]

Thanks Yes, the light from Honiton is only that visible with cloud and it's the cloud that is the problem rather than light pollution. That was an exposure of 25secs at ISO 3200 with the lens at f8 (as I recall). The sky was completely covered by cloud. Longer exposures brought out wider reflection from the clouds but the nearer individual lights were flaring a lot. This seemed the best balance.

[schotten1944]

What a great job you have made of this project. I hope the views match the effort put in, but you seem to have good dark skies.

Phil

[Gonzo]

I wish I had such location, great project and good read going through this long thread.

[Gina]

Thank you folks It was the location that persuaded me to take up astronomy properly - something I had thought of doing for a very long time. Yes the location is very good when the clouds and fog/mist stay away. My main interest is in imaging and I'm finding it a steep learning curve But some very pleasurable moments

[Peter_A]

Go to nova.astrometry.net and create an account. Once signed in hit upload, feed in your pic and wait, the page will update every 10 secs while solving, when it says success, click on the picture to see the result.

If you want to come back later, log in and go to Dashboard -> My Images.

It's fast enough that I've used it outside when trying to find something feint.

Roger,

that has to be one of the coolest utilities ever and I am over fifty so I don't say "cool" unless I really mean it. I have just used it to locate an unidentified field from some testing I did last Saturday with my new scope, it worked a treat first go. I might even have a try at scanning in some of my unidentified slides from twenty years ago.

Thanks a million,

Pete.

P.S. Gina's observatory is pretty cool too.

[RogerTheDodger]

Glad to pass something on

[Gina]

ABSOLUTE CALAMITY!!

One enormous gust of wind has broken away and lifted the heavy roll off section right off my observatory and high up into the air. It turned over and landed on the fence some distance away, demolishing that. Not sure yet as to the damage. The acrylic window pieces are shattered and so is the guttering, the wall section is now loose where it's attached to the apex roof.

Fortunately the rain had just stopped and I was able to disconnect all the cables and pipes and remove the camera and then the scopes. Then moved all the accessories in the tray plus desk into the warm room and covered the mount with a sheet of plastic and tied it on securely with bailing twine.

Again it was fortunate that the wind actually carried it well away from the warm room which seems totally intact. I have closed the intermediate sliding door and wedged it shut so hopefully the warm room contents should be alright. I switched off the mains supply.

So my next priority is to check damage and do repairs and see how I can reinstate the scope room roof. Anything else astronomy-wise is well out the window!!

We also had some roofing blow off the main shed. The weather here has been absolutely horrendous!!

[JamesF]

That's an absolute nightmare Looks like there might be a bit of a let up during this afternoon with things generally improving after tomorrow, so hopefully that's enough time to make a start on sorting things out, at least so the scope room doesn't get too soaked inside.

Fortunately things don't look too bad here from a wind damage point of view, but we have unbelievable amounts of standing water. I'm seriously contemplating having to go out this afternoon and dig some drainage channels just to get rid of some of it.

James

[Black Knight]

Sorry to hear that Gina, hope the damage is not too great.

[Gina]

Thanks both Expecting a neighbour round soon to help lift the roof off the fence then I might be able to assess the damage.

Glad your wind wasn't as bad James. Plenty of standing water here too. We've had about 8" in the last few days - I know because there's an 8" deep water bowl we use when the goats are out that was empty a few days ago and has filled to overflowing.

[yesyes]

Oh dear! Sorry to hear (read) that, Gina. I hope the damage is not too great and you can get it fixed quickly...

[JamesF]

Was the roof actually fixed down at all, or just held in place by its own weight?

James

[yesyes]

I was just about to ask the same thing....

[Auntystatic]

OMG :help:hope there isn't too much damage to the roof and obs, I guess some sort of foul weather bolting system to keep the roof on will be the order of your next project, "batten down the hatches" is a phrase that springs to mind.

I'm sure you will get it fixed and secured very quickly, your very resourceful. :(

[markarian]

I've had two obs roofs blow into the neighbouring field in the past. Neither was tied down - just relied on the weight. Current roof is definitely locked down and hasn't moved in some of the strongest winds I've seen over the past 5 years.

Mark

[Gina]

Thank you everyone

I have to admit it wasn't very strongly held down - that is definitely something I'll need to improve. There have been times in the past when we've had 80mph winds and it didn't even lift and then it wasn't secured at all. As the rain had stopped I was out in the scope room trying the scopes at various angles trying to see how big a scope I could add. Suddenly there was a loud whoosh and a crack and I watched the whole roll off section disappear almost straight up into the sky. It travelled some 25 metres and landed upside on the fence. We were lucky that the wind was easterly rather than south easterly or it might have demolished our lounge window!

Our neighbour has been and we were able to lift the roof off the fence, just, with a struggle. It's now sitting upside down on the lawn. As far as I can tell so far there doesn't seem to be too much damage. A couple of broken brackets, loosened fastenings and damaged guttering but the apex structure seems alright.

I'll do a small amount of dismantling and disconnect the wall section from the roof. That will produce two sections each of a lot less weight than the complete assembly.

It could have been very much worse! I feel a bit better now and can "see the light at the end of the tunnel"

[JamesF]

Blimey. I think I'd have been more worried about damage to me rather than the lounge window.

One of my brothers (an ex civil engineer) keeps reminding me whenever I build such things that wind flowing over a roof can generate a huge amount of lift, just like an aircraft wing. I guess this is an unpleasantly graphic illustration that he wasn't exaggerating

I know some people have some fairly hefty fixings to keep the roof of their obsy in place. I for one will be looking into those a little more closely now...

James

[Freff]

Sorry to hear of your damage Gina, glad you were unhurt.

I'm aware of the lift effect of wind on a shallow sloping roof like ours, so I (fortunately) aquired some webbing strops that lorry drivers use to secure their loads and slung three of them over the roof and anchored them down before the winds came.

I was sure the main roof structure was securely bolted down, it was the steel sheeting I was afraid of lifting.

Thankfully these have held and it appears the worst of the winds have eased.

I hope the damage is minimal Gina and you can resume soon.

[ccbmedic]

Sorry to read about the damage Gina not much comfort but at least next time you will arrange a way of making it even more secure to prevent this from happening again. I hope things are easily repaired without too much additional cost to yourself.

Regards,

Chris

[Gina]

Blimey. I think I'd have been more worried about damage to me rather than the lounge window.

If I'd been outside anywhere near that fence it would have been nasty!

One of my brothers (an ex civil engineer) keeps reminding me whenever I build such things that wind flowing over a roof can generate a huge amount of lift, just like an aircraft wing. I guess this is an unpleasantly graphic illustration that he wasn't exaggerating

Absolutely, it was pure lift - nowhere for the wind to get underneath other than that rather flimsy little guttering.

I know some people have some fairly hefty fixings to keep the roof of their obsy in place. I for one will be looking into those a little more closely now...

Yes indeed! I'll be fitting something good and strong and probably four of them.

[Gina]

Thanks for your concerns everyone Things are under way.

[Gina]

Here are some photos...

[Nillchill]

Wow, you were very lucky

1. because you were not in it at the time

2. because the whole roof came away in one piece

and

3 that there was no damage to any of the equipment inside ,

really hope you get it all back together soon Gina, and just a thought, are you covered for that kind of damage on the home insurance, might be worth considering.