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Ryehill Obsevatory completed!!

MartinB

By MartinB
in DIY Observatories

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MartinB

MartinB

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Hooraaay!! Finally got my pier from Rob at Epsilon on Thursday, bolted in place this morning and have had a happy afternoon putting everything in place. Really excited, I didn't think it was going to be possible to have one somewhere which was acceptable to family and where you could actually see stars until my wonderful wife suggested sticking it ontop of an existing brick shed. I've trawled through observatory forums, asked questions all over the place, fretted about heat retention, ambient temperatures, seeing, ventilation vs condensation, vibration, plug loadings, automation, remote control, dew, wind, trees etc etc but that's it, done!

As the pics show, I've set it up with my 10" LX200R along QSI camera and SXV AO hence all the wires. Have also attached the power supply for my QHY8. It looks a bit wiry but it's the tidiest I could get it! I will put some conduit along the floor at some point rather than those bits of electrical tape and I promise to sort out the computer wiring.

The air bricks will be sealed off when the damp weather arrives and also when the obsy is running. The plan is to use the 2 extractor fans to draw air in through the dome aperture rather than having warm air convecting out.

The dome is a 2.7m pulsar and motorised. It has a 7amp hour battery which is going to be kept charged by a small solar panel. Access is from the back of the garage up some steps.

The concrete tower comes up from the brick shed below. It is about 7' high and 20x20" reinforced concrete. It comes a few inches above the floor since the dome has quite a high upstand and I needed a bit of extra height. There is a small gap between the tower and the floor to prevent vibration when walking around.

The lap top is connected to the house desk top using a network over wire connection and VNC (thanks to all the SGL members who advised me about this).

The top pic shows the NW view. Fortunately I have pretty clear views from ENE through to SSW

Jobs to do -

Sort out using Chuck Faranda's Temma driver for Sky 6 (will allow me to park the scope)

Polar alignment and goto tweaking with MaxPoint

Properly calibrate motorised focusers

Get to grips with CCD commander - I want to be able to do automated pier flips on crossing the meridian and also sky flats at dawn.

I'll get everything sorted just in time to strip everything down for Kelling :)

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MartinB

MartinB

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Thanks everyone. Need a wider angle lens to fit everything in really.

Not doing fully remote Paul, that would involve an extra £1600 for the dome (given that I am not a handy, practical type able to do these things myself), along with a camera rotator. However, the plan is to switch everything on, align, target and focus from the house, nip back in if any rotation is needed and then run everything remotely using VNC.

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Whippy

Whippy

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That's fantastic Martin, It'd be nice to see you have a good season and really give that setup the run it deserves.

I'll get everything sorted just in time to strip everything down for Kelling

:)

Tony..

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Catanonia

Catanonia

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wow, superb job and puts my DIY fence panel obs to shame :)

I love being able to roll back the roof, move from park to align on 3 stars, focus test as already set. Pick target and go imaging within about 15 mins.

You have the perfect setup there for an amatuer and immensly jealous :grin:

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