First home, first observatory

[TheCrazedLog]

Hey all:

Myself and my wife are in the process of buying a new home up in East Maitland in NSW. One of the considerations has been a big enough backyard to put up a little observatory.

While I don't think I can justify a pre-built observatory due to cost, I'm keen to explore all options.

My question is, as a complete newbie at all of this, where do I start?

Setup will be an EQ-6 with an ED80 for imaging.

[glend]

I built my first observatory up here at Lake Macquarie in January of this year. My advice is to wait awhile until you have settled in (there are always things to do when you move into a new place). You also need to consider what the night time light situation is around your place, and that may determine placement, screening requirements, etc. Summer is not a great time to be building anything anyway. For me the only choice was a Roll Off Roof Observatory, a small shed with a roof on tracks. There is plenty of info online about them, designs, etc. If your thinking of putting in a pier for your mount head, then that will be the most demanding part of the build as you need to have a fairly decent sized hole, and concrete in it. Build the footing and pier to suit your mount weight plus its capacity (which is around 18kg), as your ED80 is not going to stree it much. You could wait and just run the mount on its tripod on a conrete slab until such time you think you need a pier. In that case a simply roll back shed might be adequate. You might want to check out the thread here on the Absco Pool Pump shed, which would be big enough for your mount. Good luck and enjoy the experience, it's great to have a place where you can leave your gear setup and ready to go.

[iandix]

welcome to the area, I live just down the road at Thornton... if you need man power just send me a message

[leon]

As a first time observatory builder and as suggested funds are limited, a roll off Observatory is the way to go.
They are relatively cheap/simple to build, and any handy person would be able to tackle it, just my two cents worth.

Leon

[GrampianStars]

Start here:- Bill Arnett's site ...

http://obs.nineplanets.org/obs/obslist.html

Drool to your hearts content at the many and varied observatories :thumbsup: