Over the last two days, with the help of my son Riley and good astro buddy, Attila, we erected the housing for the
18" F4.1 Dob on the pre prepared concrete slab, observatory plot. The kit instructions were ok but there was inevitable Ikea like confusion at times and was a good two day job but we got there in the end. For extra stiffness, we reinforced the walls with an inner rib, using framing pine, screwed from the outside, to the walls of the shed and heavy duty steel corner brackets and the shed is anchored using heavy duty steel angles fastened down with 8 X 400kg rated ramset concrete anchor bolts and we also used plenty of screws to ensure all panels are very secure to everything and finally siliconed around the base. Now just need to add some sarking/insulation to the ceiling and a weather seal to the doors and maybe some thin flooring and it will be ready for the big Dob!
The 18 inch will live in the shed and be rolled out on castors, to the isolated end of the concrete path for viewing and then wheeled back in at the end of the session...can't wait!
I plan to spread a layer of road base around the end of the concrete path, centered on the isolated pad, for easy level access in all positions.
Great to finally see the observatory with all its functional infrastructure components in place...very cool
Mike