Brett Soames has kindly built and installled a new motorised custom roof for my compact observatory. I'm doing a bit of ATM machining work for him in exchange. I though I'd post a few pics of the roof job - which is a very good one! Brett has done a few of these observatory installations around the place now.
The original roof was a 'manual' lift-off and push off roof in two uneven halves. The observatory is a little odd in that it is well out of square in plan view. It was built to blend into the shape of my backyard and existing structures which are also out of square. So Brett has fitted a square roof framee onto an out of square observatory.
The 12.5" RC and PME just fit in this compact space.
A finished view of the new roof in open and closed position is attached.
The RC has to be parked in a horizontal postion to clear the roof when closing. You can see the RC truss tube poking up above the wall in the open position. Because of my space limitations a roof high enough to allow closing in any OTA position was not possible.
I'll post a few more pics showing some of the installation.
Two photos of the bare frame. It has a dropside built in which is opened and closed by a motorised linear actuator.
The roof is pushed back and forth by a garage door chain drive system and has a fully programmable digital controller which also triggers the drop side.
Also 2 photos of the captive rollers. Getting the frame square and levelled is very important for the rollers to do their job.
thanks Lester.
The dropside was Brett's idea and design. The scope sits a few cm proud of the tops of the walls - so some sort of gap or flap was unavoidable.
I might yet add a motorised pier, since the roof obscures the lower east sky quite a bit, as you can see in the additional pic. Or perhaps some lengthening the roof drive rail. We'll see.
Yes Alex. Brett definitely does good work. No I'd better get on and finish my machining for him - post IISAC. Getting on with some imaging is long overdue.
G'day Chris. I'm sure you'd do a better job with clever/tidy layout than me. I've let the cabling go to spaghetti too - another job I've been putting off - soon to be remedied.
Hi Mike - Brett told me about your set up. Not sure if his wife would approve of him quitting the day job though
Guy you are right Jasmin would not like me to quit... I am also quite fond of being able to afford food!
That was a fun install, with the two stage roof and all. Cant wait for amother project to come along! Though I should get around to motorising my roof.... Its the only observatory roof I have worked on that hasen't been motorised. Yet
Looks fabbo. RC on PME in automated obs. Nice. 
