Getting started again; New Observatory build on the way

[Astrovirus2]

After having to put astronomy on hold for over 2 years due to dealing with a divorce and moving houses because of that, I finally got started with getting back into astrophotography again. Sadly, I had to abandon my balcony observatory (LOMO) as well, and with it that also my great views.

 

This first post will show a summary of my build progress that took place between April 18 and May 27 2020.

My new place doesn't have the best of views, but we will just play with what we have. (sorry about Dutch annotation).

 

View of the backyard before construction started, the obsy will be build on the right side in the picture, as this will give me the most clear views around.

 

Cleared the vegetation and removed the artificial grass.

 

Outlined the dimensions, and preparation for pouring the concrete pier foundation.

 

Trying to strike Oil........ but with the low Oil prices due to Covid pandemic, I decided to just use the hole for the pier foundation anyways.

 

Ready for pouring concrete, hole is 50x50 cm and about 75 cm deep.

 

Almost 400 kg of concrete later.......

 

Waiting for concrete to settle during the week.

 

Adapters to hold the floor frame. Frame will be placed on 12 of these.

 

Floor frame.

 

Lots of wood in a small shed........

 

Floor frame concreted in place.

 

Wall frames placed.

 

Roll off roof frame placed.

 

Lock down installed (and not for Covid in this case).

 

Damp open membrane placed.

 

Shiplap applied to South/West/North walls.

 

Door crafted and shiplap applied to East wall.

 

Roof plated and shiplap applied.

 

Guttering and roof trim applied.

 

Finished underside.

 

Electrical/Data cable preparation.

 

OSB flooring.

 

Wall insulation, finished with meranti plywood (kinda looks a bit like storm clouds on Jupiter). Aluminium profile to hold LED lighting strip.

 

Finishing touches to wall top sides.

 

First piece of kit to go in; PC monitors on the wall.

 

Added some pipe insulation to act as wind barrier on the roof trim.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Astrovirus2

[Skywatcher130]

Nice work! Welcome to the forum too 😀

[Astrovirus2]

Did a lot of work, together with my dad, on getting the power and data connections installed. Not completely done, but all cables are in placed, mains ready for connecting to sockets when they are installed in the obsy, data cable in place in the conduit as well.

Data cable originating from router on the other side of the wall. Also shows mains splitting from power of my house shed.

 

Added additonal spare socket to the shed as well, and installed ethernet switch for connecting to the obsy. Main power supply going towards obsy going out at the bottom.

 

Mains and data connection runnig thru the 2 inch conduit (15 m) towards obsy.

 

After 15 m, the conduit goes underground for another 6-7 m to surface next to the pilar.

 

Also started work on the a partly removable raised floor for visual observing (and more easy maintenance as well), half of this florr will be permanent, the other half will be removable, and only be put into place when needed.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Astrovirus2

[Astrovirus2]

Another joyfull day of working under sunny skies on the Obsy.

Finished the frame for the raised floor, half of which will be fixed, and the other half will be removable. The frame will serve for visual observing and more easy acces to the equipment for maintenance and adjustments.

Little stair case to raised floor.

Also received a new piece of kit today, so sorry for the clouds.

 

 

[FenlandPaul]

Fantastic progress!!! Looking forward to seeing the end result with kit installed. 

[Astrovirus2]

Finished raised floor.

 

Visual configuration.

 

And photographic (and most used) configuration

[Astrovirus2]

Got myself some steel to have en nice pier farbicated soon hopefully.

160x160 mm, 6mm thick main pilar, 1.6 meters long

 

400x400 mm 15 mm thick foot plate, 250x250 mm 10 mm thick top plate to hold the brake disk NEQ adapter from my old obsy, and finally 80x800 mm, 5 mm thick stabilizing fins (x4)

 

[andrew s]

Nice work. One concern I would have is the slope of the roof means any water on it could enter the observatory on opening or closing. Could you reverse it and or add a gutter?

Regards Andrew 

[Astrovirus2]

You are absolutely right Andrew, I just realised this potential issue recently, and had not thought that it may pose an issue on damp nights, when condesation could occur on the roof, which could then end up in the observatory. It has however a gutter installed already, which moves with the roof opening. However, a small design flaw is, that I should have made it wider so it drains besides the wall. I will probably circumvent the potential issue that this may cause on damp nights, by plugging/unplugging the draining hole when I open/close the roof.

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Astrovirus2

[Astrovirus2]

I actually decided to completely redo the gutthering, to correct the design flaw. It actually drains on the side of the observatory, so when the roof is opened, there is no risk of condesation from the roof ending up in the observatory.

[Astrovirus2]

Lots of small things to work on currently.

North pier side console, holding 2 sockets and a main power switch to disconnect all equipment from mains.

South pier side console, holding the control PC

Roof insulated and finished with some 3 mm ply wood.

Remaining opnings at the front of the roof closed off with brushes.

Same at the back end.

Added an additional layer of aluminium to raise the wheels by about 2 mm to resolve an issue with the side of the L-profile cutting into the rollers at some spots.

 

[Astrovirus2]

And then there was power and light.

3x 2 powersockets installed and hooked up to mains, further distribution will be done by extention leads.

 

Bright white.

 

Bright red. Sadly a single red LED in the 2nd strip is defect.

 

Dim red.

 

Now if only the neighbors won't start getting weird ideas what's going on when the red light is on in the obsy at night........;-)

Edited June 24, 2020 by Astrovirus2

[Astrovirus2]

First light is another step closer. The pier has been mounted, power sockets mounted, and the NEQ6 is put into place. Next will be mounting of the control PC and optics and wiring everything up.

 

[Astrovirus2]

Some more progres today.

 

I finished off the console sides.

Made a place to put up the 2 DC PSU.

And mounted to OTA and control PC to see if the OTA clears everything as expected. As a bonus, it seems the most annoying streetlight has its direct path into the OTA fully blocked by the Southern wall and roof, even at the lowest viewing angle.

[Astrovirus2]

First light approaches..........

All equipment is placed and hooked up to power and data cables.

Cable management, nice and tidy. Biggest challenge was placing the PSU for the Hypercam, which is VELCROed to the back end of the OTA dove tail.

 

Mission control, although on most nights this will be monitored from inside my warm house.

 

Back side of the center console with mains suply.

 

Daylight testing; Slewing to Regulus.

 

Custom parking for roof clearance when closing the Observatory.

 

SGL Arduino focuser installed and up and running again.

[Astrovirus2]

OK the first serious testing has commenced, trying to get familiar with my old and new kit and also with processing astro imaging data. This image was shot on 4 clear nights between Septemebr 19th and 23rd and consists of almost 18.5 hours of data (369x 3 min, -10°Cm gain 5.62, offset 25) shot with the AA Hypercam 269C Pro TEC, calibrated with 50 darks, 21 flats and 50 bias frames and stacked in DSS, postprocessed in PI. Still need to relearn a lot in PI, but for now I am happy with my first image in about 5 years time. Also, this test shows there is quite a lot possible even under my Bortle 5-6 skies.

[nameunknown]

Hi,

Great job! - a couple of tips from experience.

1) keep one of those cheap plastic sheets that are used for decorating in the obsy, just in case it rains and something goes wrong with the roof. Then at least you can throw it over the scope or whatever. Consider it the rain equivalent of a fire blanket. Hopefully you will never need it.

2) my roll-off roof (the one in the photo) blew off in a storm (good thing I had the sheet). I had tie downs but they didn't hold (but it was a very strong storm). Why not add some reserve lock-down devices ? I use four pretty heavyweight "turnbuckles" (spanschroefen ?), which I fit if the weather is going to be bad. They are a lot less expensive than a new roof!

regards, Peter