New Observatory build in Gosport

[The storm fisherman]

Sunday evening update the rain cleared away by 1 pm too late to finish laying the electric cable that can wait until next week. I finished off the internal electrics and wall mounted the burglar alarm, fitted and wired in the external multi-coloured flood light to give some illumination around the scope area . On to next week's jobs it will be either finishing off the panelling if i  get 2 good dry days together or if 1 day available i will finish laying the electric armour cable up to the electric box at the end of the decking.  During this week if i get some time i will be fitting the auto focuser to the Sky-watcher ed 80 scope and finish mounting and setting up telescope .

    I Need to look at USB hub location and wiring, it originally was all wires going back to laptop a distance of about 7 ft  but with the weight of the cabling it may be better to have it at the pier along with the cat 6 to USB hub with just 2 x  3 meter cable back to the laptop (1 USB 1 POWER) in the shed part of the observatory. The hub will control the mount and focuser and guiding and the cat 6 to USB converter is for main Zwo as1600 camera or the Nikon D5200 camera.

[The storm fisherman]

welcome to a very wind swept Gosport for the regular Sunday evening update time.  This weekend i finished laying the electric cabling and trunking started by fitting the trunking as much as possible,  put a layer shingle and sand in bottom of the trench tamped down then laid the cable then another layer of sand and half filled the trench with earth and tamped down, Then put the electric cable warning tape down filled the trench  and tamped down and then tided the area ready for grass re-seeding . The hardest thing apart from moving all that earth  was feeding the conduit bends along the armour cable . just the data cable to go that will be done on my holiday week after next there will be no Sunday update next weekend as i am away for the weekend but plenty of updates during the week. Here are the photos of today's work.

 

[The storm fisherman]

Update to follow later just to get pics up

[The storm fisherman]

update time 

This last week  had not gone exactly to plan it took at least 4 days to get the garden tidy and ready for the coming summer .I strained my Achilles tendon not once but twice and got stung on the ring finger by a bee hiding on the fence the weather has been very good and warm for the time of year only one wet Wednesday morning. On to the observatory build In the first pic the area in front of the observatory under the black plastic sheet is now ready to start laying the patio paved area for the telescope visual viewing area. i have now finished wiring the electrics and just waiting on the electrician to commission the new addition as i had to change the consumer unit in the freezer shed which is under the Part P Reg's. I have also finished the panelling just need to fill the cracks with decorators caulk and slap a couple coats of paint on the walls inside and out .

        The job's list is shrinking fast  here is the list ,

• I have to change design of the doors to take a auto closer mechanism .
• routing the data cable from the fence line on to the pier that entails digging a short 6  ft trench.
• making up the connecting box( USB hub, 12 v power hub, dew heater control, USB to cat 5 converter ) then fit it to the pier.
• changing the roof from sheeting to a rubber membrane .
• painting the observatory inside(sapphire blue) and out (willow green).

[Physopto]

Looks a nice job overall. Bet you can't wait for the finish.

Small point though. The led lamp is shining almost directly horizontal. You would be better off fitting it onto a bracket and angling it down. 

 

 

[The storm fisherman]

7 hours ago, Physopto said:

Looks a nice job overall. Bet you can't wait for the finish.

Small point though. The led lamp is shining almost directly horizontal. You would be better off fitting it onto a bracket and angling it down. 

 

 

The lamp is facing up the garden towards the house to give me some light to show the way it is remote controlled with a rf module to switch it on from the house and a infrared control for the various functions and it is on a swivel bracket so that when I am at the pier it will illuminate in red if I need it but will not be on all the time so it is very multi-purpose  

i am really glad it's nearly over it is no small undertaking but I am really looking forward to the ease and convenience it will bring

[The storm fisherman]

A happy Easter from a sunny Gosport

Good Friday turned out to be a rather good day plenty of sunshine no rain, but the forecast was for light patchy rain even up to yesterday eve and anyone who is into weather would know that the weather prediction models 10 to 5  days ago was giving us a taste of winter this weekend. I had planned to make my pier hub box today but since the weather was good from the start I decided put up another run of conduit between the observatory and the conservatory to take the other run of USB over cat 6 network cable.  originally i tried drawing the cable through the conduit that was already there but i lost both mouse strings and so cut i my loses and added another conduit run instead . The time had come to get the trenching spade out and dig a short trench from the fence to middle of the Decking and bring both the cables to the base of the pier. Unfortunately i will not be able to finish this weekend as i need a couple more bends and a Y branch to join the 2 conduits into 1 and then feed that in to bottom of the hub box that  will be mounted on the opposite side of the pier nearest the fence . As for what i will be doing tomorrow that depends on the weather either i will be beefing up the doors and filling in a gaps in the panelling ready for painting if the weather is good or the making the hub box if weather is bad. 

on to  the pictures from today 

[The storm fisherman]

Easter Monday update time this weekend did-not go quite to plan as others family, garden and even the observatory tried to throw a proverbial spanner in the works at some point this weekend.  But at least the weather was on its best behaviour the only rain we had if you can call it rain was on Friday night  with one light shower .

    Now onto works done this weekend Data cables installed up-to the pier as covered in previous post . The doors are now solid and fairly weather sealed just need to add some type of rubber seal around the door edges . Although the doors are now quite solid they were beginning to suffer from a common problem with shed doors the droop at the ends as the doors are made up from tongue and groove slats with only 3 cross braces and no diagonal bracing the slats where slowly starting to slide down under their own weight  the whole door set up was totally out of alignment which made the doors difficult to align this took a lot time to correct so that  i could seal out the weather. Gave the all the ally  a scrub down and fixed the rubber corner protectors i have only had them for the last 3 months .

Here are this weekends pictures it's looks like i will have to get the vacuum cleaner down there as i have a load of wood shavings to  get rid off .

  

[The storm fisherman]

Sunday update time

Good afternoon weather is definitely in spring mode now the severe cold that keeps being forecast has been either watered down or has not materialised the garden is beginning to suffer from drought conditions.

on to today's work there was no work yesterday as i was out on a walk on the South-downs to east of Midhurst in West Sussex . Today as i thought that i would be suffering from the after effects of the walk yesterday i decided to make up the Pier hub box for all the interconnecting power and cables etc. In the pictures i have had to build up the top with some white plastic foam card as there is a ridge which forms the sealing area for the box inside the box is the second USB over cat 6. I have not quite finished it yet as i have run out of heat shrink to extend the 5 v psu's back to the mains sockets in the Observatory, And also to feed in  the cat 6 cables after i have mounted the hub box to the side of the pier. 

As always here are today's photo's the 2 holes on the front of the box is for a second dew heater control the first has yet to be modified.

 

 

 

[iapa]

Hi,

What size is the shed you built?

the decking looks to be around 10' x 18' - is that about right?

[The storm fisherman]

Hi iapa

the decking size was decided by the length of wood i could get save on to much waste and cutting

 the size of the deck 2.2m x 4.1mrt ( APROX 13.5FT X 7.5FT) and the shed is a 6 X 6 FT (1.8 MRT) 

and the other reason for the deck size is a possibility in the future  to swap the shed for a dome of some sort.

[MarsG76]

Looks like a nice neat obsy...... great work.

 

[The storm fisherman]

On 2017-6-14 at 20:42, MarsG76 said:

Looks like a nice neat obsy...... great work.

 

Thanks for comments always most appreciated. 

 sorry for late Reply i was on holiday staying in Dresden Germany  a great city loads of rebuilt historic buildings very much like Vienna Austria without the tourist crowds yet.

 

[The storm fisherman]

Just a quick note after struggling this last year with my health constant battle with arthritis and getting injury after injury that takes time to heel. i was given the chance to take early/medical retirement which i have now taken which. I now have plenty of leisure  time to finish off the observatory and now being able to observe during the week without the problems of having to get up for work at 5:30 am.

On to today i have started on installing the new 4 way consumer unit in the freezer shed to replace the 2 way one . it will have to be re Part P cert again as it is coming off the consumer unit  from the main house .

pic 1 has the amour cable going out to the observatory 

pic 2 the bare consumer box with the 2 swa glands fitted ready for wiring 1 on left is the out going observatory supply and the right one is the in coming house supply  and the conduit on the right of the pic  is the shed lights and mains sockets.

 

[MarkyD]

22 hours ago, The storm fisherman said:

Just a quick note after struggling this last year with my health constant battle with arthritis and getting injury after injury that takes time to heel. i was given the chance to take early/medical retirement which i have now taken which. I now have plenty of leisure  time to finish off the observatory and now being able to observe during the week without the problems of having to get up for work at 5:30 am.

On to today i have started on installing the new 4 way consumer unit in the freezer shed to replace the 2 way one . it will have to be re Part P cert again as it is coming off the consumer unit  from the main house .

pic 1 has the amour cable going out to the observatory 

pic 2 the bare consumer box with the 2 swa glands fitted ready for wiring 1 on left is the out going observatory supply and the right one is the in coming house supply  and the conduit on the right of the pic  is the shed lights and mains sockets.

 

It will also require Building Regs notification as you are replacing a Consumer Unit and installing a new circuit plus you are feeding a new point in the garden.  That also doesn't look like a consumer Unit just a junction box.  Consumer Units also have to be metal since Jan 2016 for domestic installations. Have you had an Electrician round for advice?

[The storm fisherman]

Hi Mark

All in hand Although i am competent to do the work i have a electrician to do the cert work for me and has already spoken to the council  etc.

the box has been stripped  to make it easier for cable laying,routing and planning especially fitting the amour cable.