DIY Observatory - halfway there!

[Tim]

I have been planning my obsy and warm room for some time, at least in my head, but have been building it over the last few weeks in the odd spare hour and sunday afternoons.

My 12yr old son has been at my side for much of it, and I couldn't have done it without him. He could barely keep his eyes open when we finished the concrete for the base at midnight, and he helped me level it all off. I dont want to be spending 10 hours with a cement mixer again anytime soon......

I have limited space in the garden, so the roll off roof had to come back over the warm room.

Dimensions 4.4m x 2.2m overall.

Warm room is 2.3m x 2.2m, and the roll off part is 2.1m x 2.2m.

The whole lot is based upon a reinforced concrete slab, and built around 6 100x100 treated posts, with stud walling between. The exterior is clad with 21mm pressure treated cladding, and the interior of the warm room will be insulated and lined with ply.

The pier has a concrete block of its own, seperate from the main base, so I can practice my tango, rhumba and salsa around the scopes if I want to without setting up vibrations. There is a channel with removable grating in the floor between warm room and obs, to allow cables to be passed through as required, without making a trip hazard at night.

The warm room roof will be felted, and the sliding part has a galvanised sheet roof, which my next door neighbour was kind enough to donate to the cause.

The plan at the start was to design and build it all myself, and do it for less than £1000, and in a way that I can provide drawings with all dimensions etc for the DIY section of SGL, and possibly in the future provide an observatory in kit form, that just needs screwing together.

I still have the doors to make, walls to line, pier to bolt down, cabling to fit, floor to tile, benches and shelves to make, roof to topfelt, cladding to fit and stain, guttering, and paving around the entrance and pond to do etc etc, but I feel now that I am making progress.

Here's a couple of pics, big day yesterday, the sliding roof went on I'll do a complete build album when it is all done, I have been taking pics after each session is finished.

Cheers

TJ

[dobserver]

Very slick - looking good

Looking forward to seeing the whole process and the finished result.

Steph

[Beyond_Vision]

Looking very good Tim

Regards

Kevin

[barkis]

That looks the Bees Knees Tim.

It's big too, and that's a big plus, there's no substitute to having plenty of room. You will be a lot more comfortable working the magic from there.

Ron.

[Milliways]

Lookin good my man!

[Tim]

Here's the inside, which shows just how much remains to be done.

But the best part, and what I am most pleased about, the OTA on the pier there is pointing at its lowest useful target, dead south. As you can see, I now have a much lower southern horizon than I used to have. The wall of the obs bit is lower on the southerly side to accomodate this view.

[tooth_dr]

Looking very very nice there, will enjoying seeing more updates.

[Tim]

That looks the Bees Knees Tim.

It's big too, and that's a big plus, there's no substitute to having plenty of room. You will be a lot more comfortable working the magic from there.

Ron.

It does seem nice and roomy inside. You may have noticed it also has its own moat.........im trying to get it cleaned on expenses.

[NickH]

That does look very very slick indeed..

Warm room really does make a difference :-)

[Scott Tilley]

Hi, very interested in your progress. Looks stunning so far. Hopefully I'll be starting mine after christmas so please keep us updated with your progress, all ideas gratefully accepted:D

Scott

[moocher]

A moat!!!!? Wow that is posh!!!! That reminds me i must get my leaky warm room finished!!!! Looks great though Tim, an obs makes so much difference!!!!

Alan:)

[dark knight]

Looking fantastic Tim,,hurry up an finish it so you can start mine...

[Tim]

No real progress yet, few little things done, but I now have an extra day off a week, and a written joblist. I reckon there's about 5 or 6 full days to do on it.

I HAVE had a first visual light from it though, the moon and Jupiter the other night close together. I roughly set the polar alignment bolts for the mount, and hand pushed my C9.25 to the targets. We even had a great view of M31. It is really dark inside the obs, fully sheltered from all the neighbours lights, the street lights, and the airport lights. To make things even better, it looks like the airport may have to close, they're in dire financial straits apparently.

Cheers

TJ

[Wobbly Bob]

It does seem nice and roomy inside. You may have noticed it also has its own moat.........im trying to get it cleaned on expenses.

So its welly's in the obsy then Tim, I can just see you after a hard nights observing, locking up, turning round then stepping/falling into the MOAT

[Wiltshiresaint]

Any progress on this project TJ? Ready in time for the New Year?

I'm sure there are plenty of us out there keen to learn how its going.

[Tim]

Getting there I am doing the fiddly jobs now, really, although I still have the internal door to make and the external one to finish.

The pier is set and the mount drfit aligned, so I was able to make the most of the clear new moon night this week. Actually captured 9 hours of pictures, and it could of been more if I hadn't swapped telescopes and cameras. Thats the real benefit of the obsy so far, even though the warm room isnt warm yet Just open the roof, flick the switches, and you're away!

My mrs has booked a holiday over the xmas break, so I wont be able to finish off as hoped, but it wont be long now.

Cheers

[barkis]

Your Mrs is a good judge mate. You're going to burn yourself out.

Finishing the last bits should be pleasurable knowing the end is in sight. I hope the break is to somewhere nice an warm.

White out here, and it's still falling, I'm glad I don't have to go to work anymore.

Ron.

[dark knight]

Tim, if possible could you please post some more pics of the sliding roof design, it looks awesome and something I wouldn't mind having a go at...pretty please....

[Tim]

Yeah of course. Its kind of experimental really, but so far so good. I do need to replace the galvanised metal sheets though with bitumen ones, the metal is too noisy at 4am and also attracts condensation. I tried it because it was free

Its not obvious from the pic, but the south side wall of the obs is lower than the north side, so the sliding roof allows nicely for that, without having to hinge any side panels.

[MartinB]

That exterior cladding looks so smart. The whole thing looks like it's going to be the business Good that you can get so low to the south.

[dark knight]

That's a fantastic design, I'm really impressed as it allows you to get so low to the horizon and as you say, no hinged wall panels, it really is the dogs do dahs..

[darkly]

Now that is smart, I've completed a few building projects myself in the past and I know that the buzz / sense of satisfaction you're going to feel when it's finished just can't be adequately described in words.

It'll never be finished though, if you're anything like me it will become a constantly evolving project as you see small improvements and modifications that just give that extra personal touch

Wishing you the best of luck (not that you'll need it) and hope it gives you many hours of good viewing.

Cheers

[Tim]

No progress at all for weeks, I have tiling to do which is waiting for the frosts to finish, and I darent use my chop saw with freezing fingers, too easy to misplace them.

At least I have been able to make use of the obs though, had several nights imaging from it so far.

[ollypenrice]

I'm really interested to see this. I have been drawing up something very similar, with the roll-off coming back over the warm room. At the moment all our observatories are full roll-offs and double as temporary computer rooms if we are imaging. I like the idea of leaving the computers set up, though, and swapping pesky laptops for desktops. In my design the walls of the telescope part are much lower but I have good horizons. I would make the warm room and scope room walls out of timber (probably nothing like as nicely as yours!) but I would weld up a steel roll-off chassis because it would have deeper sides than yours so would need the strength. I'd clad the steel with ply, as on my present sheds.

A major hassle with the full roll-offs is that we currently have a metre of snow on the bits that they roll onto. Groan!

Good luck for the finalizing. It looks really great.

Olly

[Dave]

This is a brilliant project.

Your observing will become much more convenient and much more productive when it's all done.

Have fun.