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Woohoo! Major step of observatory completed!

Grant

By Grant
in DIY Astronomer

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Grant

Grant

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Posted

I don't think I've mentioned this before but a few weeks ago I brought a second-hand but very new shed from my uncle with the intention of turning it into a roll off observatory...

Well thanks to a good friend of ours, we were kindly donated 3 rsj's with flanges so they bolt together, two of these is going to make the perfect sized pier :D I've just walked in from finishing concreting, the lower half of our pier is suspended in the concrete, a flipping huge hole and alot of concrete!!!

We also concreted the guy who gave us the RSJ's base today, his using a brick outhouse as his observatory and had a bigger base than us but its looking superb so two bases done :lol: Hopefully will be able to finalise the top of the pier tomorrow and start re-assembling the shed, which has a dirty great hole in the floor for the pier to go through (so its completely isolated from the shed)...

I need to go see the blacksmith guy who made up some tube rings for me, I need to get him to make a top plate for my mount to sit on with locating lug bits...

The plan is to assemble the shed around the pier and then work out how to achieve the roof, because the shed came to us by chance we haven't planned the roof yet, we have a few ideas, rolling it off as a whole lump, splitting it into sides (its an apex roof) and sliding each side off independently, this could be adjustable to block wind and any light pollution, another idea is to replace the roof with plastic panels....

Anyways, I'm very excited about it! Can't wait to get it all up and running now, will take some pictures as I go (if I remember!)

Cheers,

Grant

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Whippy

Whippy

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Nice one Grant, sounds like it's going to be the biz. Why don't you have a Thunderbirds style roof that splits open, then maybe an organist coming out of the shed playing 'beside the seaside' like at Blackpool Tower with your scope mounted on top of the organ.....

TAXI!!!!!

Tony..

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barkis

barkis

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Grant, I hope you don't think I am intentionally trying to dampen your excitement, far from it.

I also used rsj's welded to form the backbone of my 12" Newt mount many years ago. My drive motor was a geared down synchronous, so perhaps the problem I had won't apply, if you are using steppers.

The mount was superb when finished, and very sturdy indeed, but I couldn't understand why when viewing, the image would blur.

I eventually discovered it was due to the frame resonating to the frequency of the motor. The structure was actually ringing.

If I gently placed my fingers on the focuser, the image would clear, and become sharp. Take my hand away, and after a few seconds, the resonance would begin again. I actually cured the problem by shuttering the RSJ sections, and filled them with concrete.

Perhaps, as I said stepper motors may not induce the same effects. You may remain free from the problem I had.

It's just that since you are going to use the same structure, I thought I would tell my story.

Ron. :D

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Grant

Grant

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657_normal.jpeg

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Existing Astro Shed (completely full!)

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Little patio for my tripod currently

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Pier

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Pier suspended in concrete (using other two rsj's, one is the top of the pier)

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Floor of shed cut ready...

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Rest of shed bits...

And what my horizon will look like:

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I've left out the west horizon because thats just houses.... but everything else isn't to bad at all :D

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Nice one Grant, sounds like it's going to be the biz. Why don't you have a Thunderbirds style roof that splits open, then maybe an organist coming out of the shed playing 'beside the seaside' like at Blackpool Tower with your scope mounted on top of the organ.....

Tony..

Wurlitzer silly idea I think. :D

Good luck with the build Grant.

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Grant

Grant

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Update to the observatory: its really coming on a treat now, rolling roof working, just need to finish waterproofing everything and sorting out the pier top plate - then its some electrics and shelving and she's ready to go :D

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Outside of shed (roof up)

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Roof Down

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Inside Roof Down

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Inside Roof Up

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Grant

Grant

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Thanks guys :p

I can't claim to much credit for this, most of the work is by my dad plus the idea for the roof, the legs to support it were my idea though :D

The idea was to make something that can easily be done by one person with the option of leaving one side up as a wind barrier, this works perfectly! Can't wait to use it now...

Just a few bits left to do then it needs kitting out, hope to start imaging in it very soon! :lol:

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Grant

Grant

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When its open, the roof sits on the edge of the shed and the two legs, its a very heavy roof so I don't think the wind can cause any trouble with it, plus the way my garden is, anything below about 5 foot is sheltered from the wind by trees and bushes....

Hopefully a friend is going to mill us a plate for my eq6 to sit on :D Unfortunately, whilst placing the bolts for the pier our first template didn't work so well so we had to frantically think of a solution (which is why we ended up suspending the pier with bolts attached straight into the wet concrete), because the concrete was setting we had to do this really quickly and forgot to recheck north! So the pier is a bit out now, doesn't matter to much though as long as the center of the peg for my eq6 and the center of the hole for it lineup with north...

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