SpaceEagle Observatory (SEO) - My small window to the universe...

seo · October 23, 2015

Hi to all,

I thought that it'll be nice to share some photos of my small portal to the universe...

General description:

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The name of my observatory is "SEO" - SpaceEagle Observatory.

The obsy is a 3m diameter Dome type which I bought at December of 2013. Before that I had a R-R obsy which I sold. The installation procedure, including a base/floor cement, started at at March of 2014 and after a lot of testings and emough changes at August of 2014 the first "real world" experimental tests started. At the same time my main remote operation room, at the basement of my house, was also ready. Until June of 2015 many more tests, equipment addendum and changes have been done to the obsy and finally it was ready for its first "serious" operational tests. Since then and up to now more required testing has been done to equipment, security, imaging, photometry and other sections of its "existence" and right now it's operational at 80% of its expected capabilities.

After some few more scheduled changes and I hope to be the last ones... it'll be at 100% of it's full operation capabilities - if and when this very persistent bad weather permits of course!

Here someone may of course ask... <<if it's a commercially purchased obsy then why did you put it in the DIY section ?>>

Well here are the main reasons which made believe that this was the proper section to post it :

1. Even if the Dome (exterior part) was pre-builded and not designed and constructed by me I personally made a lot of changes and re-configurations to it as for example, the obsy base/floor was designed and build by me, I raised the rotating part by about 15cm using another type of wheels and by doing that I also reconfigured the rotation tracking system by adding special metallic rails made by me (DIY) . Another thing that I did was to repaint the interior walls in a black mat color (non reflective) and with a silver-gray color (also non reflective) the interior part of the shutter, also scheduled is the re-configuration of the whole shutter window position/limits. There are also many other changes and re-configurations which I made as for example : internal lights , mains power system, security backup power, autonomous emergency shutter closing system and others.

2. The interior of my obsy including the pier, except of course the usual buys - telescopes, mount, focusing system, imagers etc, is in a big portion of it a DIY.

I hope my desicion to put it here was right. :smiley:

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Ok, time to go to some photos and desciptions....

** For any of the commercial equipment I've used I wrote only a general description about it - this is a DIY section...

When all started....

Obsy base finished...

The next photo is general view inside the obsy when the door opens (The A/C unit, the Dehumidifier and some other equipment wouldn't fit in this photo).