SHOW US YOUR OBSY

[Peter Drew]

astronomycentre.org.uk.

[Fish]

Here is my plastic pig ... 

 

[nightvision]

Fish, that looks neat, how do you slide the roof off without supports, is it lightweight?

[lukebl]

I've posted mine before, but I couldn't resist posting it again. Here's my roll-away Tardis which houses my 12" Meade SCT.

Here's a worried-looking me lurking behind the Meade:

Here's it in action:

 

[brrttpaul]

thats pretty near to what i was thinking 

[Davey-T]

Spooky the way the Tardis stays put but the cats time travel 

Did Dr Who have hanging baskets ?

Dave

[Horwig]

On 10/12/2015 at 22:13, Horwig said:

Ok here's mine:

And this is what lives inside

Huw

This might be the last of this dome, didn't get a good thickness of fibreglass over the ply, looks like its about to start leaking big time, the ply is rotten through. I might be looking at replacing it with a Pulsar dome, damn, and I so wanted to show that a DIY dome was the way to go

[Penguin]

Here's mine, inspired by @lukebl's. Built over the summer by your's truly:

[lukebl]

26 minutes ago, Penguin said:

Here's mine, inspired by @lukebl's. Built over the summer by your's truly:

Nice!

I hope it's not as leaky as mine. I'm having real problems in heavy rain. There are so many places where water can get in.

[Rusted]

On 7/8/2016 at 00:11, Horwig said:

This might be the last of this dome, didn't get a good thickness of fibreglass over the ply, looks like its about to start leaking big time, the ply is rotten through. I might be looking at replacing it with a Pulsar dome, damn, and I so wanted to show that a DIY dome was the way to go

Sorry to hear that. What kind of ply did you use? Lifetime so far?

I'm close to cladding my own skeleton with Birch ply.

[Rusted]

Progress so far. Waiting for spring and glue-friendly weather.

[Horwig]

On 12/01/2018 at 17:39, Rusted said:

Sorry to hear that. What kind of ply did you use? Lifetime so far?

I'm close to cladding my own skeleton with Birch ply.

I used 3mm ply, not sure to its quality, it was whatever the builder's merchant kept in stock. It was not the wood that was the problem, but my attempt at fibreglassing. My problem was that I had not used any woven glass cloth on the wood when I resined it, so the resin cracked, allowing water through. Redoing the dome has brought it back to life, I now have a nice thick glass layer with no leaks, the wood underneath is sound enough, only small areas were affected. Now if my scope worked I would be happier. As to lifetime, the original dome was built in 2014, and re done in 2016, hope it now lasts a lot longer

**EDIT** I got my dates mixed up, the dome was initially built in 2012

Huw

[Penguin]

7 hours ago, lukebl said:

Nice!

I hope it's not as leaky as mine. I'm having real problems in heavy rain. There are so many places where water can get in.

Oh yeah, it leaks, but only in a couple of places. I plan to fibreglass the roof soon in the hopes of fixing that.

[Davey-T]

You can get proper fibre glass kits designed for roofing rather than building boats etc.

Dave

[VilleM]

Here is mine.

6" f/2.8 Boren Simon newtonian on HEQ5, ASI1600MM-C, Starlight Xpress 5x2" filterwheel with LRGB / or narrowband filters, focusing done with USB focus V3. Guiding with 50mm finder and ASI120MM. As allsky camera I use ASI120MC which you can see on the left inside the plastic dome. On the right, aluminium box that contains remote-controllable flat field panel. The telescope is remote-controlled from indoors, only thing I need to do manually is open the roof and hook up batteries since I dont have electricity here (except generator to charge laptops and run working-lights if needed).

[JeremyS]

Here's my Pulsar observatory dome. Now houses a Celestron C11 rather than the Takahashi FS102, as shown in the internal photo (with Tak FS60 on top).

 

[laudropb]

Very nice Jeremy. Thinking of putting one up myself, but waiting until I have taken down some large conifers before deciding on where to site it.

[Timebandit]

On 07/07/2016 at 18:49, lukebl said:

I've posted mine before, but I couldn't resist posting it again. Here's my roll-away Tardis which houses my 12" Meade SCT.

Here's a worried-looking me lurking behind the Meade:

Here's it in action:

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Penguin said:

Here's mine, inspired by @lukebl's. Built over the summer by your's truly:

 

 

 

Great work gents ?

 

A shot in the dark chaps but maybe you are Dr Who fans ? ?

 

 

 

[m.tweedy]

Here is mine.

I have posted before so sorry if it is repetitive

C11 Now off and WO GT81 Imaging rig in its place until I can afford a beefier mount to handle both set up's

 

[Rusted]

On 1/12/2018 at 21:57, Horwig said:

I used 3mm ply, not sure to its quality, it was whatever the builder's merchant kept in stock. It was not the wood that was the problem, but my attempt at fibreglassing. My problem was that I had not used any woven glass cloth on the wood when I resined it, so the resin cracked, allowing water through. Redoing the dome has brought it back to life, I now have a nice thick glass layer with no leaks, the wood underneath is sound enough, only small areas were affected. Now if my scope worked I would be happier. As to lifetime, the original dome was built in 2014, and re done in 2016, hope it now lasts a lot longer

**EDIT** I got my dates mixed up, the dome was initially built in 2012

Huw

Did you stipulate the plywood was for external use?

The danger with a semi porous covering is that it traps moisture against the underlying structure.

I once made an aquarium from a curved, van windscreen and fiberglass mat and resin.

The GRP ended up about 6mm or 1/4 thick from memory and was well "wetted" through.

Luckily I water tested it outside. It leaked worse than a sieve!

Chicken netting holds water better than that thing did!

I ended up giving it away as a reptile house.

[paul mc c]

On 03/07/2016 at 22:13, paul mc c said:

This is the best i can do....but it is nice and dry,at least.

Update.....his is mine now....well a year ago.

[timwetherell]

On 12/13/2015 at 15:52, Gina said:

I have dark skies here but they're always cloudy at night  

Let me take a wild guess, you're based in the south west right? Makes an observatory very desirable here if it's at all feasible to have one. I managed a quick look at Jupiter and Mars this morning between rain showers but only because it was possible to deploy the scope in a couple of minutes and get it in again quick when the rain resumed. 

[iapa]

On 07/07/2016 at 05:14, Fish said:

Here is my plastic pig ... 

 

Something simulate, 5 Sister Observatory

from the inside

before it blew away in the wind

 

 

IMG_1765.mp4

[iapa]

On 07/07/2016 at 18:49, lukebl said:

I've posted mine before, but I couldn't resist posting it again. Here's my roll-away Tardis which houses my 12" Meade SCT.

Here's a worried-looking me lurking behind the Meade:

Here's it in action:

 

as a bit of a Whovian, love this

[rodrigol]

I've got a nice obsy project going too. You can see it at: