Design idea for obsy - comments please

[Parallax]

I am contemplating building an obsy on the site of an old, no longer needed, greenhouse. The site is 10' x 8'.

Due to certain constraints I cannot have an 'external skeleton' for the roof to roll off onto. Therefore I have come up with this design. The roof will run on fixed 2" dia. castors and the wheels at the bottom of the front uprights will me 4" dia. rubber (these will be rolling on the concrete patio). Can you foresee any problems? The only thing that I can see at the moment will be if the roof 'twists' when being rolled off and gets wedged.

It's only a concept at this stage and any input will gratefully received.

TIA

Steve

[Astroman]

That's a very interesting idea, Steve. Structurally, you may look into a "pocket door" type design. You'd eliminate any panels used in a door, but you could add corner bracing for stiffness. I'll draw up an exmple and post it when I can.

[jcm]

The left hand movable struts ( castors at bottom) would have to be cross braced. The movable sides walls would have to run outside the fixed walls so they can be braced as well. Not sure how this would work unless the side walls had castors underneath them.???? At the moment I am looking at all sorts of designs because I am replacing my obs.

John

[daz]

Steve

My shed (flat stored at present) has a half rolling roof. The shed is 9x7 and the roof rolls back 6'. The struts that support the roof are therefore only 3', leaving 3' of the shed covered.

Does this make sense? Might be another option??

[George]

Leaving a section covered does cut down on dew falling which does help keeping the PC/charts etc dry, I always close back the roof as much as possible once Im tracking a target....helps keep the wind disturbance to a minimum too.

[Parallax]

Thanks for the ideas.

I had already anticipated cross bracing across the front but not at the sides (obvious really). This could be a challenge.

Back to the drawing board, with possibly more questions after a redesign.

Steve

[Ajohn]

I've wondered about this sort of thing to at times but have decided to go the way of light weight equipment and a method of setting it up exactly the same each time. Much easier to do with a vixen type pier. Not so easy with a tripod mount.

On observatories I have wondered about a shed with a smaller rotating dome on it. Means a tall pier and a raised observing platform. Practicality being dictated by the size of the scope.

John

[lunator]

Steve

I think your design shows promise.

I have a 7x5 roll off observatory of traditional design and I sometimes leve the roof part open. This is fine but you can bang your head if you are not careful.

Rgds

Ian

[Parallax]

I have redesigned it to take into account the cross bracing issues and (hopefully) there is an animated gif below.

However, I am not going to take it any further. I have decided that it will be much easier to buy and modify an existing shed, as others have done.

Steve

[MartinB]

Well that looks a very workable design to me and effectively halves the over all space taken up by the obsy.