Unbelievable oppurtunity but what to do?

[Scubadude]

I'm still very much an occasional astronomer thanks to the lack of space for the telescope to remain setup but I've had fun and have been experimenting with webcams and considering a "proper" camera setup on my old Tal... but this has all been a pipe dream as my only valid observing location is the patio (due to neighbours trees) and a long term setup (even for a weekend) would get trampled.

Anyway we are finally moving house! (Chosen for every reason but astronomical ones) in fact the only element that would earn that description is how much moving costs... but I digress.

The new place has a massive brick built double storey garage (the previous owner was a builder and had a workshop above the garage) its built like a artillary position!

In the spirit of cooperation and comprimise (and with my eyes on the garage for bikes, cars and other pursuits) I offered to convert the workshop into an office for my work-from-home wife.

Fast forward to this weekend, sitting in the garden watching the Persieds, out of the blue my wife ideally wonders if we could make a permanent "observatory" for my telescope in the roof of the new garage!

After I picked myself up off the floor I said- well, yes, we could..... not quite believing the conversation, she followed up with- Do you need planning permission for a dome?

Well, as you can imagine this is way beyond my current equipment but I'd be a fool not to seize the oppurtunity and at least acquire the space and make a conversation of sorts, I can always equip it with bigger/better telescope at a later date.

I'm slightly at a loss where to start but think the best move is to decide how much space I'll need and set maximum dimensions, clearly it'll be standing height inside (6' 4" for me)

Anyone been done this road and got any words of wisdom?

[Earl]

You will need to watch out for heat rising through the building this will distort your views.

That is one of the reasons Observatory's are a detached single story building for the most part.

[Psychobilly]

Check out MartinB's obs...

http://stargazerslounge.com/diy-observatories/85916-ryehill-obsevatory-completed.html

Peter...

[Bizibilder]

Sorry to bring bad news but your proposed site would not be very good at all!! One problem is vibration. If you put a scope "in the house" any vibrations - people moving about, the central heating, flushing the loo etc will transmit to the observatory and ruin the image, even for visual observations. Secondly the house is warm (I hope!) and will therefore produce a "heat haze" of moving air currents above itself that will ruin observations as well!! I suspect that planning permission (for raising the height of the roof) will also be a problem.

If you have a choice then a good garden site would be best for a permanent set-up.

[TheThing]

I think he's talking about above a garage, rather than in a house. Unless it's very posh, I doubt there will be heating, flushing loos or people moving around, so I can see this will be a problem.

[Bizibilder]

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I meant any attachment to the house or garage. ie with a physical connection that can transmit vibrations.

[Psychobilly]

I'd get in touch with MartinB and ask him how well his works....

[angusb1]

No reason you couldn't do this, your two main issues to resolve (that are pointed out above) are heat and vibration.

If the building isn't heated then you won't have the heat haze problem to the same degree as a heated building. The building itself will still get heated by the sun and so there will be a small amount of heat haze until it is cool.

If you want to avoid vibration you will need to have the pier that the telescope sits on separate to the rest of the building so that vibrations can't be transmitted to it. This means it needs to be built into the concrete? floor of the garage and go up through the floor without touching the floor into the 2nd storey. So not insurmountable but not straightforward.

[Scubadude]

Hi,

Yes the garage is seperate from house (by the length of the garden) has its own substaintal concrete foundations, power but no heating. The potential site is in one corner so a pier going down to the floor slab isn't a problem (although it'll need to be longer and hence thicker) that said the roof is apex design so the height of the roof in the corner is about 1.4x the hieght of a single story garage so technically this would be more like building out of the roof of a conventional garage.

Peter- that link to the Ryehill Obseratory looks like the thing I was imagining

[Capricorn]

Cannot see there being sufficent heat or vibration to really cause a problem. And what an opertunity:D:D:D

It has to be worthwhile havinga dedicated observing area.

Not sure of any details but even if you had an open balcony/floor at the end, as in no dome, it would be a good observing area.

First find out what your wife really wants:evil6:

[michaelmorris]

Your situation is very similar to how I started down the observatory road. (See the home page of my website for details - www.almiraobservatory.co.uk ). Because it was her idea,I thought it politic to name the observatory after my wife.

Ideally, you should isolate the pier from the floor slab itself. This would usually mean cutting a whole in the existing slab and laying a new 'block' of concrete that goes down below the existing slab + hardcore and is slightly isolated from it.

I found that doing loads of research on observatories and some pretty detailed design before I started paid large dividends when it came to building and operating the observatory. There are a couple of good books on the subject that I would heartily recommend getting.

Setting-Up a Small Observatory: From Concept to Construction

http://www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-1-85233-572-4

Alibris.co.uk have both these books at second hand at the moment for less than £12 each.