From Micro Obsy to Dual Pier Observatory - via Hard Work, RSI, Back Ache & Melting Credit Card!

[ArmyAirForce]

January 4th

As I've lived with the observatory since August, I've had a few problems opening the front flap, prior to opening the roof. There's just a lot of weight pressing down on it and the friction makes it hard to push open.

To help resolve this problem, I've added some 'roof lifts' with over centre hinges, attached to the roof. The hinged wood is slightly longer than the length of the distance from the roof to the top of the front wall. When the bottom of the wood is rested on the top of the front wall and is pushed straight, the length increases slightly, lifting the roof and taking the weight off the opening flap. The flap is then free to open, without the weight and friction of the roof pressing down on it.

The lifts fold up out of the way to allow the roof to roll open. I added some additional blocks to the top of the front wall to give a greater bearing area for the wood to push against. Those are nailed and glued and currently drying.

After checking everything worked as it should, the pieces were removed again and the wood and hinges painted. They will be refitted once dry.

[Alan White]

NIce to see its working well and that the fettling is ongoing.
You have produced a very fine observatory.

[ArmyAirForce]

January 16th

A little more tinkering today. For a while, I could have done with a holder for the mount hand controller. I'll often hold the hand controller when doing solar system imaging, particularly if I have a small ROI set on a planet, so I can help to keep it central if the mount is drifting a little. However, I could still do with somewhere to put it down on occasions.

I didn't want anything fixed in place, as I move around the mounts during a session. These wooden holders slot into the gap between the pier adapter plates. They aren't fixed, so they can be moved and also clamped to the side of my shaded computer box when I'm doing solar imaging. I'll probably add a slotted box on the side of the computer box so the holder can just slot into the side when needed.

So far, they've both had two coats of paint.

[ArmyAirForce]

January 17th

The brackets for the mount hand controllers were finished today. They had another coat of paint before being taken out to the observatory. This is the solar system scope, my Explorer 200PDS.

This is my deepsky pier with my Evostar 80ED, currently used for solar imaging in Solar Continuum and Calcium K light.

[ArmyAirForce]

After a test fit, one bracket was brought back in to the workshop, along with my solar imaging laptop box. I then modified the laptop box with a wooden socket on the side, so that the controller mount will slot into place. It will be nice to have somewhere to put the controller where the coily wire won't snatch it away!

Back in the observatory. Another job ticked off the list.

[ArmyAirForce]

January 23rd

I was going to be going to B&Q later today, so while I was going to be there, I thought I'd pick up some of that brush draught excluder for the observatory. I had a check on their website this morning and after seeing the price, quickly changed my mind! Potentially, I was going to need around 14 metres, but it was going to cost a fortune. Back to the drawing board.

I then remembered some thin mylar sheet I've had kicking around my workshop and garage since the late 1980s. I could cut that into strips and nail or screw it on instead. Now I'm not going for 100% air tight, but I wanted to close up excessive gaps for air and bugs. I'm never going to stop crawly things from finding a way inside, but at least I can make it much harder for them.

On the back wall, the mylar was cut into a 3 inch strip which was nailed to the inside edge of the rear wall. This still allows the roof to roll away from it as it opens.

The mylar was tucked under the bolt, but cut around the bolt receiver and the wooden support for the roof wheel. I may still need to do some fine trimming, but I'll wait until I next open the roof to check that.

[ArmyAirForce]

On the rear wall, I've gone across the full width of the observatory.

So far, I've only partially filled the gaps in the front. I've added a 1.5 inch strip to the opening flap, along its hinge line. This closes up its gap, but still allows it to swing forwards and up to open. I ran out of time today to do anything with the gap between the bottom of the opening flap and the top of the wall.

[Graeme]

Looks like an effective solution.

[ArmyAirForce]

Facebook rememinded me that it was a year ago today that I started work on the observatory. This was clearing weeds, roots and other vegetation. It's come a long way since then.

March 7th

I haven't used the observatory much over the winter. It has either been raining, overcast or too cold for my old bones. I've also not had much energy to go out due to working so hard in the garden. On the 7th, I did do a little wide field photography of the Jupiter/Venus conjunction. It was one of the few rare evenings of partially clear sky.

March 21st

On the 21st, we had 6 tons of top soil, slate and gravel delivered onto the drive at the front of the house. I didn't fancy pushing dozens of wheelbarrow loads, 200 feet down our gravel driveway to the back garden, so split the loads into slightly smaller bags and used the crane on my WW2 Dodge truck to lift and move it all to the back garden.

[ArmyAirForce]

March 25th

On the 25th, all the arrangements were in place to collect the railway parts for the garden feature. I returned from a local preservation line with seven sleepers, rail chairs, screws and enough rail to make about 16 feet of track.

March 26th

On the 26th, we started spreading slate around the veggie planters and behind the observatory. There's two to three inches over the top of a weed membrane to help to prevent unwanted plant growth. While there's a small negative impact of the slate creating unwanted thermals from soaking up solar heat, if I'm planning a summer session, opening the roof will shade the slate from the sun. I doubt it will gain enough heat in Autumn, Winter and Spring to have much effect.

Edited April 9, 2023 by ArmyAirForce

[ArmyAirForce]

April 3rd

By April 3rd, we were making good progress on levelling the earth for the new lawn and for the railway track bed. There's still a bit more work before the final surface.

[Graeme]

14 hours ago, ArmyAirForce said:

March 25th

On the 25th, all the arrangements were in place to collect the railway parts for the garden feature. 

My kind of garden feature! I spent the last 20 years working on the railway (Electrification) Retiring this year. Looking forward to seeing what you do with your bits!

 

[malc-c]

16' private branch line    - Whet the OP isn't showing us is the battered 5 plank coal wagon that will be restored and placed on the short track similar to what local residents did on the site of an old disused line that was lifted as part of the Beeching act 

 

 

[ArmyAirForce]

1 hour ago, malc-c said:

....the battered 5 plank coal wagon......

I did think about a 20ft goods van converted into a summer house/shepherds hut type room, but the cost was going to be £20,000+, so I'll make do with the gate and track!!

[ArmyAirForce]

The weather hasn't been great for using the observatory recently, 'though I was out on the 20th to image Venus. On the few occasions it was reasonable, I've been too exhausted from the garden works to be bothered to go out.

I've been pushing hard to do as much as possible when it's dry and the clay soil isn't too wet. It doesn't take much rain to make it very sticky and unworkable. I've still got more work to do inside the observatory, but I want to get as much of the garden groundworks done now, before the ground dries out too much and is too hard to work easily. There's a narrow seasonal window between being too wet and too dry!

April 19th, 20th & 21st

Over these three days, I did more weed clearing and earth moving. The earth around the lawn was slowly levelled for the edging sleepers. This was both along the hawthorn hedge and the divide between the new lawn and railway. Lots of roots, stones and half bricks to clear. It reminded me of the good old days digging the pier foundations!

Towards the end of the last day, I brought the additional edging sleepers down from the workshop patio to the bottom of the garden ready for use. I laid them out along the track bed to get a feel for the look of the railway and the space around the track for the crossing gate. The proper railway sleepers need jetwashing and treating before they are laid.

April 25th

More digging! This time it was the foundations for the level crossing gate. The first one wasn't too bad, just a mix of gravel and clay soil. The second was a nightmare. I don't think there's anywhere else in the garden with as many roots as in that two feet square hole. Everything ranging from a fraction of an inch to three inches diameter. It was very slow going and took most of the day to dig the two holes.

April 27th

Yet more digging, but I got three of the rear edging sleepers in place and two and a half sleepers of the second layer screwed on top. The offcut from the half sleeper was cut a little further to fit in the centre stretch of the lawn/railway sleeper divide. These aren't yet pinned down. I want to put a weed membrane under the railway and the edge will also go under the lawn/railway divide sleepers. Before I can do that, I have to also get the last sleeper and a half fitted along the hedge.

[Swoop1]

I feel great sympathy for your back....

[ArmyAirForce]

2 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

I feel great sympathy.....

Checking on Google Earth, it turns out that the plot of land from the railway up to including the garage, is the same size as the whole plot of land my last house was on - and I thought that garden was a lot of digging!!

We're slowly moving towards a garden that only requires lawn mowing, some hedge trimming and weed killer on the drive and railway. It should be fairly easy to look after when it's completed.

[ArmyAirForce]

May 18th

On the 18th, I did some more work on the gate footings. I've had to make some compromises with the gate, for the reasons of practicality. I needed to remember that this is a garden feature, not a working railway. The gate will be too low to open and clear the tracks. If I wanted to be able to open it, the gate foundations would need to be raised by around 12 inches, or the whole trackbed dug out and lowered by 12 inches.

Raising the gate was going to make it look rather odd and digging out the trackbed through roots, concrete and bricks left over from the air raid shelter, was far more work than I was prepared to do. As a result, the gate height is set for a practical and aesthetic appearance in relation to the rest of the garden.

The main footing, nearest the hedge, was raised by the addition of a 2 inch thick paving slab being cemented on top of the concrete blocks. This lifted it by around two and a half to three inches.

The other footing was quite a bit lower, due to the slope of the garden. I added two more concrete blocks on top, bringing it to a very similar height to the main gatepost footing. Once the mortar is set, I need to back fill around them with earth to level the area, ready for the weed membrane that will cover the whole area.

May 23rd

I got my angle grinder out and with a stone cutting disc, rounded off the edges of the concrete footings so that they wouldn't cut through the weed membrane that would be laid over the top. I then packed earth around the concrete, wetted down to help me pack it in firmly, levelling it off with the top of the concrete. This further helped to smooth out the transition for the membrane lying over the concrete. The mud was left to set a few days while I had other jobs to do.

[ArmyAirForce]

May 25th

On the evening of May 25th, when wifey was home from work and free to help, we carried the gate from the rear corridor, around 150 feet down the garden to the railway location. The footing for the hinge end of the gate was drilled for the rawle bolts and they were installed. The lawn/railway dividing sleepers were then lifted and a 5 metre square weed membrane spread out over the trackbed area. The sleepers were replaced and can now be drilled and pinned down properly.

The membrane was cut around the rawle bolts and the gate lifted and lowered into place. It took a bit of jiggling to get all the bolts through the metal post mount, without pushing them back down the holes, but eventually all eight nuts were in place and tightened down. The other end of the gate is just supported on a block of wood for now. I need to order some steel plate to make the mounting bracket for the other gate post, which will then support the end of the gate with its locking bolt.

Feeling very happy this evening.

[ArmyAirForce]

I was out doing some maintenance on the observatory this morning and noticed that it must be drying out after the winter.

On 04/01/2023 at 13:57, ArmyAirForce said:

January 4th

......

The levers shown above, that lift the roof slightly to allow me to open the front flap, weren't needed today. The flap opened without binding on the front wall. I guess it's all to do with the structure absorbing moisture over the winter months and drying out again now, as it was built in the dry summer last year.

May 31st ~ June 4th

At the back end of May, I got all the railway sleepers jetwashed and treated in Creocote, an environmentally friendly version of Creosote. I figured because of the previous Creosote content, a water based preservative wouldn't soak in as well.

The bottoms of the sleepers were painted in bitumen, as they are in contact with the weed membrane and ground. I've also turned some sleepers the other way up so the better sides are upwards.

This morning, I got all the sleepers adjusted so that the rail chairs will all be aligned and packed the sleepers with wooden shims to bring all the top surfaces parallel and level for the rails to sit on them evenly. Not shown here, the area where the rail chairs will sit, were also coated in bitumen to reduce water pooling under the chairs and rotting the wood. That's all drying now. The next step will be to get all the rail chairs screwed to the sleepers. I unloaded the rails from the trailer yesterday, which was no easy job. Assuming the rails are 130 pounds per yard mainline rail, the 9 feet long sections must have been close to 400 pounds in weight. I think I'm going to need my Dodge truck out again, to carry them down the lawn to the build site ( and I thought that digging pier foundations was hard work! ).

[ArmyAirForce]

June 7th

On the morning of the 7th, I painted the gatepost mount a second coat of Hammerite over all the areas that had been already painted. Once cured, it can be turned over and the underside can be painted. I also painted the anchor bolts that hold the main gatepost onto its concrete footing.

After lunch, I began to transport rail chairs from the garage to the trackbed. Two chairs at a time, plus six chair screws was as much as I could carry in the wheelbarrow. They are very heavy.

While there were already holes in the sleepers from previous chair screws, they were very tight to screw in, especially the last couple of inches. Even with the two feet long wrench, it took two hands and a lot of force to get the screws all the way home. Actually, I left them with about a sixteenth of an inch of play, to allow the chair to move slightly on the sleeper. This should help with alignment once I drop the rail into the top of the chairs. It took most of the afternoon to transport the chairs and to get them screwed down.

[ArmyAirForce]

When I got to the bottom of the bucket of chair screws, I found I was one short, so I'll have to contact the railway where I bought the track and get one more screw from them. The middle sleeper of the seven must have had a different style of rail chair fitted, as the hole spacing was out and didn't line up with my chairs. As a result, I had to do some drilling to make new holes. That left a load of wood chippings on the weed membrane, so I got the garden leaf blower out and blew it clean, then packed all the tools away and took the latest update pictures.

I'm already seeing some nice widefield constellation and star trail imaging compositions around the railway.

[ArmyAirForce]

June 8th

The two shorter lengths of rail needed the ends trimming square, before they could butt up against the longer rail. As can be seen in the first picture, the ends were very untidy.

I picked the two straightest ends and took my angle grinder to them. It took some time, but I got both cleaned up and square enough that they should fit together well.

The next small step was to get my builder's line out and check the alignment of the rail chairs. I'd roughly lined up the sleepers based on the chair mounting holes, but once the chairs were fitted, I was able to get a much better alignment.

[ArmyAirForce]

June 9th

The 9th was the big day! I wanted the rails fitted. Step 1 was to get my Dodge Weapons Carrier out of the garage and assemble the crane on the back. There was no way I was going to be able to carry the rails down the garden, but the Dodge would manage to get them almost all of the way with very little effort. Nylon ropes attached through bolt holes in the rail and connected the rail to the chain hoist on the Dodge crane. Another rope was tied to each end of the rail and was fastened to part of the crane frame inside the Dodge. This triangulated the rail to stop it from swinging around while I was driving.

The rail was picked up from the driveway, near the garage, reversed through a gap in the hedge onto the lawn, then I swung around, heading backwards towards the play house and level crossing gate. The playhouse limited how close I could get, so once there, the rail was raised with the chain hoist, then the jib was lowered, swinging the rail further back from the Dodge. It was then lowered onto the sleeper wall, next to the railway.

Once sitting on the sleeper wall, I lifted each end by hand, and placed a two inch diameter roller under the rail. The rollers were made from two offcuts of tent poles. This allowed me to roll the rail along the wall to where the trackbed was. Once aligned between the sleepers, one end was lifted by hand and turned 90 degrees.

Another plank running up the railway sleepers, allowed me to then roll the rail towards the hedge. I was fitting the shorter sections of rail at the hedge end and the longer pieces at the playhouse end. It took thirty six minutes from hooking up the first piece of rail to the crane, to having it sitting in the rail chairs.

[ArmyAirForce]

The whole process repeated - lift, drive, drop, roll and lift into place. At this point, the rails were just being dropped into the chairs, not properly fitted at this time. The longer rails took a little longer to rig for lifting, as only one end of those rails had a hole through. I got three rails fitted and then stopped for lunch. After a break, the last rail was rolled into place along side the rail chairs and then each end lifted in turn to drop it into the chairs.

After another long walk up the garden, I came back with a bucket of chair keys. These keys are hammered into the gap between the chair and rail. This is quite an old method of rail fixing. In the video to the right, you can see me hammering a key in. Only one was really tight and needed a little trimming off to fit.

Here's a short video of my Dodge bringing one of the rails down the garden, hammering in a chair key and a bit of fun once all the rails were in place.