Observatories for small Dobs

[Guest]

I have a commercial grade 10 inch Orion dob.  I keep looking at the various observatories out there and plain and simply the walls are all too tall for the normal run of the mill scope.  I am not overly impressed with the Skyshed Pod or Nexdomes so I am now leaning towards doing an open air observatory.  I would be very interested in seeing what the owners of normal sized dobs are using.  Say 12 inch and under.  Thanks in advance.

[Swoop1]

You need a roll on roll off observatory as opposed to roof- sentry box style shed which you roll out of the way to observe- a bit like the Tardis Obsy-

 

[Alan White]

Or you can store alongside the Observing Area in a Sentry House or Dob House arrangement.
 

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Alan White

[Guest]

On 03/01/2022 at 12:00, Swoop1 said:

You need a roll on roll off observatory as opposed to roof- sentry box style shed which you roll out of the way to observe- a bit like the Tardis Obsy-

 

I am not a fan of the roll off roof observatories.  Primarily due to the expense of building one at today's price of wood.  

[Guest]

Oh wait ....I misread your post.  My bad.  I do like your TARDIS.  Is it bigger on the inside?

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Alan White said:

Or you can store alongside the Observing Area in a Sentry House or Dob House arrangement.
 

I think you are doing what I will end up doing.   This spring I will be tearing up a 10x10 area of my lawn and filling it with pea gravel.  Then I will use pavers as a walkway and place to set the scope.  The wall to kill the lights that are a quarter mile away will go up after that.  I would like to use Red Ceder boards, but skid wood would work fine too lol

 

[Carbon Brush]

6 hours ago, Mike Q said:

Oh wait ....I misread your post.  My bad.  I do like your TARDIS.  Is it bigger on the inside?

I have been fortunate enough to see the TARDIS. As a garden feature it looked amazing.
A structure that is in a completely different league to the usual sheds, bottle recycle bank, etc. construction.

Something like this can be given a prime spot (that means best sky views) in your garden.
A shed/dome often being relegated to a corner to keep a significant other happy.

[Alan White]

9 hours ago, Mike Q said:

 

It works well for me.
If you have had time to read the thread, it started to block out next doors many lights,
ended up taking a few turns.

[ollypenrice]

Surely a roll-off sentry box is your solution? I've made three of these and they all worked well, with one now converted into a motorcycle garage and one going strong over a 14 inch SCT. The great thing is that it only needs to be a box big enough to roll over your scope, which in the case of a 10 inch Dob is very small. (The sentry for this box could be a gnome!) I would want the Dob higher than the surrounding land to keep the base dry, so I'd go for a concrete block. Then what really matters is having the box both ventilated and insulated, this combination fighting off dew formation. It also needs to be soundly prevented from blowing away, but that's easy to contrive.

This would house a 14 or even 16 inch Dob so yours could be about a

quarter of that size, making it a dead easy build.

Olly

 

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Surely a roll-off sentry box is your solution? I've made three of these and they all worked well, with one now converted into a motorcycle garage and one going strong over a 14 inch SCT. The great thing is that it only needs to be a box big enough to roll over your scope, which in the case of a 10 inch Dob is very small. (The sentry for this box could be a gnome!) I would want the Dob higher than the surrounding land to keep the base dry, so I'd go for a concrete block. Then what really matters is having the box both ventilated and insulated, this combination fighting off dew formation. It also needs to be soundly prevented from blowing away, but that's easy to contrive.

This would house a 14 or even 16 inch Dob so yours could be about a

quarter of that size, making it a dead easy build.

Olly

 

I will definitely be keeping this in mind when I get around to actually building up the site.