Gina's Mini Widefield Imaging Observatory

[mwayne]

On 1/5/2015 at 09:13, Gina said:

I was thinking of sheet aluminium, maybe 1.2mm thick, for the curved parts and plywood for the ends but I'm open to suggestions for alternatives.

Hi Gina,

The original roof on my observatory was aluminum that I got for free from at friend that worked at an air conditioning duct work factory. Not sure of the thickness but golf ball sized to tennis ball sized hail destroyed it. So I rebuilt the roof with 26 gauge sheet metal. Just wanted to let you know in case you have to consider hailstorms in your area.

Good luck! 

Mike 

[Gina]

No, we are luckier than you - the biggest I've ever seen were less than an inch diameter.  I know you get terrible hail storms in the USA

[Gina]

With the rate of progress with projects of higher priority, it seems unlikely that this one will ever get any further

[Gina]

Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time on this and it turned out to be less than satisfactory   Too much power needed to open and close.  Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.  I'm now thinking about a dome, using the aluminium sheets for sections to form a multi-sided dome rather than a true hemisphere.  The opening for a dome is a simple sliding door and rotating the dome will require far less power than an opening roof.

[Gina]

Think a new thread is indicated...  HERE

[Gina]

This project might be back on but without remote opening and closing.  The fork mount and dome projects are still on but will probably take some time.

I'm currently using my main observatory without remote roof control (or rather I was and will be again when the weather permits) so why not this mini obsy as an interim measure.  I think most of it is done but I'll see when I've cleared up my store room ready to make it a workshop as it's "buried" ATM.

[Gina]

I moved some stuff out of the way of the parts and have them out in the open (I'm part way through clearing the room).  There is a conflict between the assembled roof section and the parts I cut for the fixed part "box".  The internal length of the roof using the made up roof section would be just over 900mm but the box sides are about 660mm.  Looking back through the thread I see I lengthened the roof then later decided it didn't need to be so long after all.  The latest widefield imaging rig is much lighter and smaller that the triple imaging rig I had designed this for so will need to re-assess.

[Gina]

Going through this thread from page 12 onwards, I'm pretty sure the new imaging rig will fit in the original size of mini obsy.  There is one piece of aluminium sheet I haven't found that was used on the original shorter outer roof section.  This must be around somewhere.  The same size panel for the inner moving roof section is here as is the second 1000mm x 500mm x 0.7mm sheet for the longer inner moving roof section.  If the shorter version is alright and I can find the missing sheet, I can use the larger sheets for the dome version.

[Gina]

This roof project is back on but sections much shorter and using my new widefield imaging rig on fork mount as described in another thread.

[Gina]

With at least two telescopes fighting for a place on the EQ8 in my main observatory, there is a possibility of this project being resurrected or at least something big enough to take my Esprit imaging rig and probably NEQ6 mount.  Yes, astro imaging is in my sights again after quite a long period

[Shibby]

Glad to hear that Gina. Good luck resurrecting the project! We do have to think of these things as very long-term projects so we don't get too depressed about setbacks and general lack of progress!