I decided when I got home in Oct that I'd replace my roll off roof with a dome.
I just got around to it at the beginning of last week.
I drew up some plans on my CAD prog and projected the dome to get 12 segment 6 bigger than the others so they'd fold over,
I am stopping for Christmas but thought I'd show how far I got
Well done Jennifer you may get people wanting your plans to do the same ,the only thing is ,what is the roof made from were the dome will go and has it got a small slope to allow the water to run off when it rains
1 in 100 slope.
The dome is 4 mm ply. Fibreglass seams.
The dome is 5 foot diameter
The roof has a 90 x 45 top plate with joists and purlings to support the ring.
All covered in 9mm construction ply. No atea is bigger than 2 foot unsupported.
The downside of the shed has a gutter and there's an ag drain on the upside of the slope so any ground water bypasses the shed and pier
1 in 100 slope.
The dome is 4 mm ply. Fibreglass seams.
The dome is 5 foot diameter
The roof has a 90 x 45 top plate with joists and purlings to support the ring.
All covered in 9mm construction ply. No atea is bigger than 2 foot unsupported.
The downside of the shed has a gutter and there's an ag drain on the upside of the slope so any ground water bypasses the shed and pier
Again well done don't forget to add some pic of the finish job
Ian
Geez Jennifer !! You're putting the rest of us to shame with that rather stunning project. I keep making plans to do something similar with kids geodesic frames and Satellite dishes or whatever but that is inspiring.
How does it all open up to view ?
EDIT: Ah, just figured that part out, like to see the hinge build.
How are you going to weather seal the opening ?
One half of shell is bigger than the other. The small one folds into the big one the whole revolves with the touch of a finger on 11 rollers on the roof ring.
I like the concept, but am having difficulty understanding how it works. If there is a smaller section which roller/folds into the larger section, how do you see zenith. If the sections are each half, then zenith would be obscured (a little) by the fixed half. If the fixed section is less than half, then the smaller section would need to be bigger and necessarily fold down inside the dome below the horizontalmounting ring on which the system rotates. To my mind, this configuration would also present weather sealing issues.
Grateful your comments on how you overcome these issues.
I need to find a roofing system for my developing observatory so am interested in the detail.
Cheers Brian
My scope is on an neq6 ok?
Imagine the scope pointing to zenith the ra section of the mount is lying on its side withthe scope out from there by about 6 inches. The counter weight on the other side by about15 inches.
So when ot flips you end up with the scope out the other side so you spin the folded roof 180.
Zenith for the scope is always in the open.
Too bloody clever for words ...got me thinking now.
If I wasn't so busy getting my little business up and running.
EDIT send plans for the gores.. I want to swing the 8F8 Astrograph eventually.
How are you retaining the rollers on track ?
How's the weather seal working ?
nice job Jennifer. 
