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My ror obs is roughly 3 by 6 metres, and is split in half to make a 'control' area and storage alongside the viewing area. The gabled roof of the control room is slightly lower than the viewing room roof. This allows the viewing room roof to roll back over the control room roof on garage door tracking. The garage door track in the viewing room which supports the centre of the moving gable section, is designed to easily lift out thereby giving clear view of the sky. The track is simply dropped back into a support point at either end to allow the roof to close back over the viewing area again. This saves footprint of the overall structure.
I also wanted extra viewing height to get above local obstacles. I made my concrete pier somewhat taller and wider than most. Set in the obligatory cubic metre of concrete at the base. The whole obs is on a concrete slab, but the viewing area floor is raised inside.(I go up three steps). While the pier is a bit longer out of the ground, because of a larger diameter and plenty of rebar inside, it is still very stable.
My one mistake was that I built the dimensions to the equipment I had at that time. I have since upgraded from an EM200 Mount to a PMX. The paramount is physically taller than the Tak and made it much closer to the roof when closed. I now need to park the scope appropriately before I can close the roof.
I should add, this refers to my Canberra obs. Still working on one for Laos.
Hope this helpful.
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