[bluescope]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

be great to see some daylight images of the observatory. green with envy!!

No worries hOughy, I'll see what i can do ! Although I don't want you to see my crappy handy work up close .... I'm no builder.

Originally Posted by Bassnut

A muso?, oh dear, thats fairly critical . Supprised you got the patience and skill to build an obs then, rare breed indeed . Perhaps we could do a duo at the the next IIS star party then, as long as you dont play bass

Patience and skills come with age I guess ..... basically if there is no one else to help you just have to do it yourself ay ! Plus the fact that all I did was replace the original roof really with a few little twists. I looked at lots of guys observatories on the web and they were, for the most part, very involved i.e. welding heavy duty angle iron or building a timber structure from scratch etc. I looked for an easy way of doing it such as using the shelving unit frame as runners with pre cut holes. As they say " keep it simple stupid " .... suits me.
I think I'm a bit far away to come to any IIS parties but I can play bass as well as guitar ( lead,rythm,classical,folk ), a bit of keyboards, drums, blues harp, sing. I just don't dance ! I made a living playing guitar and singing.

Originally Posted by mrsnipey

Nice setup Steve.

Just a question though. How do you secure your shed from the nasties that prowl the burbs these days? I've noticed a lot of aa's use sheds but sheds aren't terribly secure.

I've spent too much money and time on my setup to let some scum steal it.
Don't want to scare you.
Just thought I'd ask as eventually I too will have an observatory.

I guess it's just a chance you have to take, as other astro guys have noted a garden shed is not designed to be impregnable but I have a pretty secure backyard and I do have security DEVICES in place that I would rather not discuss online snipey ! We've got a small dog that would make a mess of any intruders ankles heh heh heh ! One thing that I don't leave in the obs is my SBIG camera or any other camera or eyepieces for that matter. The PC is oldish and I don't store my images on it anyway, I use a 1 Gb flash drive to save them to. If anyone wants to try and lug the EQ6 or 10 inch ( 15kg ) Newt over the 2 metre fence well good luck to them, I couldn't manage it ! It's not like my gear is irreplaceable anyway and that's what insurance is for ! I think also that if you make a thing look like is contains valuables ( HEAVY DUTY LOCKS, BARB WIRE etc ) it's more likely to attract attention. Besides it's illegal to have machine guns in your back yard !!! Anyway I'm sure you will deal with security when you setup your own observatory.