Gina's Observatory Build - Abbreviated - Main Construction

[Gina]

15 November 2011

Today's weather has been good - fine and after a cloudy start, sunny. Cold at first then warmed up with the sunshine but cooled off mid afternoon.

Today's progress :-

1. Cut and nailed on the shiplap at the top of the warm room south wall one side of the window.

2. Fastened vapour barrier to roll off south wall.

3. Nailed shiplap onto roll off south wall.

No DSLR photos today and very little on the webcam as all the action was out of sight. Camera sighting to show this work would need to be outside our property.

[badgerchap]

Aha! I see a rather nice observatory emerging! Good stuff, very jealous!

[Gina]

Aha! I see a rather nice observatory emerging! Good stuff, very jealous!

Thank you It was one hell of a lot of work but the result is lovely Plenty more to come in this thread I'm gradually working through the enormous one selecting the best bits and copying over to here and the other relared threads. This is quite a long job too but something I've been intending to do for some time. Tedious but quite rewarding as is often the case with tidying up

[Astrokev]

Hi Gina

Good to see some of these pics again but I'm not sure "abbreviated" is the word I'd use to describe it. The thread is already longer than the vast majority of build threads!

[badgerchap]

Hi Gina

Good to see some of these pics again but I'm not sure "abbreviated" is the word I'd use to describe it. The thread is already longer than the vast majority of build threads!

"Comprehensive" is, I believe, the term

[Astrokev]

"Comprehensive" is, I believe, the term

Or, in the case of the many (many) web images, possibly "repetitious" ? Am awful lot of them do seem to show the same thing - I sense a possible opportunity for another new thread, being a "summary" of the "abbreviated" one!

Only joking Gina - you've got a great obs, which has given me lots of ideas for when I eventually get round to mine!

[ASIGN_Baz]

Might be pretty impressive if you loaded all those "same" looking images into a time-lapse!!!

Good work Gina!

[badgerchap]

Funny you should say that I was "Page Down"-ing yesterday to get a bit of stop-motion animation

[Gina]

I was thinking of making a video out of the time-lapse images from the webcam. I might get round to that someday. I think it could be quite interesting and entertaining. Any suggestions for suitable software to do it with?

[knightware2]

Thank you for sharing the story and images. Doing so must have added quite a bit of time & effort to the project itself. Your project is inspiring and I hope you have some good weather to enjoy it!

[Gina]

Thank you for sharing the story and images. Doing so must have added quite a bit of time & effort to the project itself. Your project is inspiring and I hope you have some good weather to enjoy it!

Thank you We had some reasonable weather after it was operational early last year but after that it's been dreadful And still isn't much better - we're lucky if we get one clear night a week! I didn't spend much time during the day doing the write-up - it was during the evening when obsy building was not so practical and I had used up the day's energy

[Gina]

West end wall outer cladding mostly complete.

[Gina]

Here's a photo I took by leaning over the fence and holding my DSLR out at arm's length. Shiplap fastened onto the fixed warm room south side either side of the window opening and on the moving roll off section, with the shaped top pieces of shiplap still to be cut and fastened on. Vapour barrier was fastened over the roof top to keep it out of the way while the shiplap was put on. The south side roll off rail supported by a corner post can also be seen.

[Gina]

I think I must repost this webcam image This was when I was making the outer door and had just assembley the outer part of the frame. I think Bobby the billygoat was thinking of claiming it as his shelter

[Gina]

Here are some photos from 20 November 2011 showing the state of build progress at that date.

View from the west.

The obsy downpipe taking rain water away from building.

[Gina]

A few webcam images showing door construction. Sometimes had a "helper"

Goats are not always helpful

[Gina]

The inside of the door at this stage. Later I clad it with 6mm plywood.

[Gina]

I made the gap between the roll off rail and the warm room roof a window. To cater for the guide rollers running either side of the rail and rain water running down the window, I arranged a sort of gutter using an offcut of the rubber membrane used for the roof. Water will run down the "gutter" and out at the end. I attach a diagram showing cross sections at two places.

Using the membrane to make a gutter is mentioned in the Rubber4Roofs web site.

The window acrylic sheet is shown in light grey and the membrane in black. Woodwork is shown in various other colours. Diagram not to scale.

Attached Thumbnails

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[ASIGN_Baz]

I was thinking of making a video out of the time-lapse images from the webcam. I might get round to that someday. I think it could be quite interesting and entertaining. Any suggestions for suitable software to do it with?

Adobe premiere? Windows movie maker?

[Gina]

Adobe premiere? Windows movie maker?

Thanks

[carastro]

I remember that build well. Good idea to precise the thread though as it got very long. This will prove to be invaluable to any-one thinking of building their own ROR Observatory.

Carole

[Gina]

Thank you Carole Yes, I'm hoping it'll be useful to others

[Gina]

Here are some photos of the gutter made from the rubber membrane.

Looking into the lower end of the gutter. The rubber was formed into a small spout to direct the water away from the wall. I didn't think there would be enough to warrant a downpipe. Please excuse the lack of focus.

[Gina]

24 November 2011

Suitable shaped pieces of acrylic sheet were cut to use as windows for both the scope room roll off roof and warm room north wall to provide light in the daytime. Here these are shown in position but not yet fixed in.

[Gina]

Weatherproofing the roll off roof using brush type draught excluder.