Marked the north-south line from a shadow off a level at solar noon the other day. I confirmed it again today.
I then lined up my pier with that north south line and the mounting holes for the PME mount. This was from advice by Paul Haese - thanks Paul!
I then levelled using metal washers as packers. Then I installed 6 x 10mm x 50mm anchor bolts into the slab and the pier.
Then I put grout under the bottom of the pier where it had minor gaps.
Then installed the PME now with the saddle in the correct orientation fixed on the mount.
Then reinstalled the scope and camera etc. Then gave it a bit of test run in the daylight and it all looks good ready for a polar alignment tweak then start imaging.
Cloudy though of course but I am happy everything is ready to go next clear night.
[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]I finally installed an extra primary mirror baffle Astro-Physics sent me about 2-3 years ago or longer. Meant to suppress reflection arcs from bright out of field stars. I virtually never saw this anyway but it's an upgrade so I installed it.
I then gave the optics and mirrors a clean.
Put it all back together and on the mount ready to go.
Hopefully the current clear skies last to the night!
Greg,
Congratulations on the new Obs
Well done !!
Is that 12” f3 / f4 or a 10” f3 / f4 ?
Looks great what ever it is
Yeh I used the solar noon shadow method as well to scribe my True N/S line on my deck prior to building my NexDome on it.
Luckily I was only a degree or two out so I didn’t need to move the Azimuth too much for polar alignment. All my concrete piers lined up spot on too for the EQ8 pier tripod legs and feet , whooosh. It paid dividends to quadruple check things months and months prior to final install
I bet your pumped at the moment with the new set up and can’t wait to get your teeth into some imaging !!
Greg,
Congratulations on the new Obs
Well done !!
Is that 12” f3 / f4 or a 10” f3 / f4 ?
Looks great what ever it is
Yeh I used the solar noon shadow method as well to scribe my True N/S line on my deck prior to building my NexDome on it.
Luckily I was only a degree or two out so I didn’t need to move the Azimuth too much for polar alignment. All my concrete piers lined up spot on too for the EQ8 pier tripod legs and feet , whooosh. It paid dividends to quadruple check things months and months prior to final install
I bet your pumped at the moment with the new set up and can’t wait to get your teeth into some imaging !!
Clear Skies
Martin
The scope is an AstroPhysics Riccardi Honders astrograph. Its 305mm aperture and F3.8. The mirrors are fixed it never needs collimation - a big plus.
The tube is 14 inches and is oversized I think to help eliminate tube currents. It has a wetsuit type materials thermal blanket around the main body and dewshield. It holds focus reasonably well with a small shift with termperature.
I have a FLI Atlas focuser on it which is very good and needed as the critical focus zone is very small.
I did a T Point run last night to improve polar alignment but autoguiding showed one axis to be off. Then clouds rolled in. I am close to imaging with it.
I like the fact that the roll off roof is rather quiet and moves with hand pressure. The observatory is close to the fence with one of my neighbours.
I closed it up last night at 12:45am so that is important.
Greg,
Gee that’s a quality bit of kit in your Obs
I believe those Honders came out around 2009 / 2010 and sold in Oz for around $20K ??
The minister of finance wouldn’t approve those sort of funds in retirement to splurge on a rig so I have to be content with my humble gear.
Monday and Tuesday night are looking good at this stage
[ATTACH][ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]I finally installed an extra primary mirror baffle Astro-Physics sent me about 2-3 years ago or longer. Meant to suppress reflection arcs from bright out of field stars. I virtually never saw this anyway but it's an upgrade so I installed it.
I then gave the optics and mirrors a clean.
Put it all back together and on the mount ready to go.
Hopefully the current clear skies last to the night!
Greg.
Please stop posting astro porn like this Greg, disgustipating
Managed to do 2 shortish TPoint models tonight through the clouds that were rolling in. I got a decent polar alignment and brief autoguiding showed low errors.
It's supposed to be clear on Sunday and Monday night.
2 clear nights and started imaging. All going well and then the autoguider starting getting time out and device not detected messages.
Checked the cable again and it was fine. Swapped out the autoguider with a new one I have and it worked fine.
Later it seemed the problem was too large a shift in dithering. I backed it off and the guiding was stable.
Just another thing to get right to make the system stable. I got about 4 -5 hours of images from each night.
Would be good to know what sliding gate track and wheels you used from Bunnings please Greg. Were they metal roller wheels that you find smooth and quiet, or rubber coated in some way? Agree every little noise in wee hours of the morning makes you feel guilty when neighbours are close by.
I have already started imaging and the skies are quite dark and the seeing at times is excellent. Cloudy nights has been the norm though but a few clear ones are starting to appear.
I should have the data for a decent image by Monday.
Congratulations Greg it looks great!
Looking forward to seeing the first images from it.
Thanks Pete.
I have started imaging and gotten data for 4 objects so far. I would like more data and replace some RGB that was not ideal on some.
First thing next clear night is a larger T Point model and more accurate Polar Alignment just to tighten up the guiding a bit more.
I am enjoying it.
I as looking at the stars a few times and they are not that different to what I see at my dark site apart from the unlimited field of view I have at my dark site.
My dark site shows stars as fiery pinpoints. I am not sure how much more that enables an image from a few steps away from that. Imaging at home is a lot more convenient.
I suspect darkness is important up to a point then it becomes diminishing returns and your processing becomes the key thing.
The observatory has been operational now for a little while. Been accumulating data sets.
The seeing here on the South Coast of NSW can be exceptional sometimes.
The restricted view means I can get about 3 - 3.5 hours of data per night when clear.
Access to my desk is a bit tight sometimes with the counterweights of the mount otherwise it's all working well.
The Bunnings sliding gate rail and wheels are particularly good and I can comfortably close the roof halves by hand late at night without disturbing anyone. The central latches work well too in heavy winds.
The skies here are darker than I thought. Not far off my dark site's darkness (but not field of view) and darker than at Kurrajong so overall better off. Not sure about the predominance of cloud though. So far it's been very cloudy but have had 5 nights of clear skies in the last 2 weeks.
A few minor finishing off touches and I would consider the observatory complete and a succcess.
Hi Greg,
I bet you’re glad the Obs is now up and running.
Yes the skies in the Shoalhaven coastal region can be excellent ( like any dark location I suppose ) although in summer you do get salty air from those strong nor’easter’s hanging around a bit, plus some local cloud from the south at times.
The sky brightness around my Dome location is around 21.50 ( Bortle 3 ) , a little worse to the south where I can just make out the sky glow dome from Ulladulla.
It’s a shame about your FOV at your Obs but we make good use of clear skies , it just takes a bit longer to collect data
Enjoy your new site , you will be impressed during the Winter and into Spring , especially July to September, best nights down here ( a tad colder than Sydney too )
All the best
Martin
PS: Last weekend down at my Dome was great ( about a 7/10 ) Nice to see some clear skies again
The observatory has been operational now for a little while. Been accumulating data sets.
The seeing here on the South Coast of NSW can be exceptional sometimes.
The restricted view means I can get about 3 - 3.5 hours of data per night when clear.
Access to my desk is a bit tight sometimes with the counterweights of the mount otherwise it's all working well.
The Bunnings sliding gate rail and wheels are particularly good and I can comfortably close the roof halves by hand late at night without disturbing anyone. The central latches work well too in heavy winds.
The skies here are darker than I thought. Not far off my dark site's darkness (but not field of view) and darker than at Kurrajong so overall better off. Not sure about the predominance of cloud though. So far it's been very cloudy but have had 5 nights of clear skies in the last 2 weeks.
A few minor finishing off touches and I would consider the observatory complete and a succcess.
Greg.
All sounds like your in business to me, excellent, looking forward to your results Re the, a bit tight to get to your desk, that's one thing I don't miss about the Sirius dome, I had to crawl around in the dark to get to the laptop quite often as when the counterweight shaft was anywhere near horizontal, my (arhem) stomach bones (and thick jacket of course ), were juuuust a bit too big, to fit between its end and the side walls, even after inhaling and sucking it in , soooo, the only way to pass was to crawl underneath it and the large counterweights, in the dark ...no such problem in the 3M Scopedome now though...should be able to sink plenty more beer and pasta yet, before having to worry again
After using the observatory now for about 6 weeks I have been able to review it's performance.
Areas to improve: I should have made ther roof overhang at each side of the
observatory to make it more weatherproof there. There are cutouts in the fibre cement cladding for the wheels to pass through and 2 of these leaked when it rained. I have since added some more flashings and probably that is fixed now.
I was limited to the size of the observatory and overall it's fine but the counterweights can be a bit in the road of easy movement around the observatory at times. The observatory is 2.8 metres square so 3 metres square would have been nice.
Other than that it's working out great. I particularly like the sliding gate track and wheels from Bunnings. I can move the half roof segments with my finger. It also rolls very quietly which is important when neighbours aren't that far away.
In terms of how it looks in the backyard of new modern house, it looks good. The bifold window I picked up second hand makes it look a lot better and also assists in cool downs.
The joining flashing where the 2 roof halves meet works well and has not been a problem.
The centre locking latches have also been quite easy to use but they need to be positioned accurately otherwise they can be a harder to engage.
The metal purlin frame and aluminium 50mm square tube trusses for the roof work really well. The fibre cement cladding looks modern and matches parts of the house.
So yeah overall I am very happy with it and it is very practical and comfortable. It's optimised the viewing angle as I have a line of trees to the north which block my view. But then that is not much different to my last observatory at Kurrajong NSW where the light dome form Sydney to the east meant you really had to wait until the object was high and near the zenith. My dark site observatory is at the top of a hill so it has virtually any angle to view.
The floor is simply a slab about 100mm thick. The frame is metal purlin, the walls are Hardi Plank and the roof is corrugated colorbond matching the house. The roof frame is made out of 50mm x 3mm thick aluminium square tube. I laid a pvc tube in the slab when it was poured to get access to power which is just outside the observatory on the house wall.
Next step would be to run a cat 5 cable form the observatory computer to inside the house like I did for my last observatory which meant I could monitor an imaging run very easily from inside the house using remote desktop in Windows.
I thought I would do a write up as it might help someone who is looking to build a home observatory.
Greg,
Great report
Glad it’s all worked out well for you and you now have a fully operational Obs on the South Coast.
I too had some minor water ingress issues in my Dome where the workstation bay is located. I corked around the wall and floor joints with bathroom clear silicon and problem resolved.
Yes Windows Remote Desktop is excellent, I use it in Sydney with my backyard open rig ( Cat 5e data outlet in weatherproof housing located on back wall of house , just run a 5m Cat5e patch cord from external outlet to outdoor workstation ) and also at my Dome on the South Coast ( ran Cat 5e data cables from Dome underground to house and have a wall outlet in my Study )
Both have worked flawlessly for 3 years now.
), were juuuust a bit too big, to fit between its end and the side walls, even after inhaling and sucking it in 
