Hi guys,
I currently live in a raised house with no storage available underneath and recently injured my back carrying the scope down the stairs so I'm toying with the idea of building a more permanent setup in the backyard.
I unfortunately don't have the budget or plot of land to setup a permanent observatory. The layout of my garden means the telescope is setup somewhere close to the middle of the yard. Otherwise there are trees or a massive house hanging over a large portion of my sky. However I do have the space to setup something I can leave there but can be moved on rare occasions.
I'm toying with a few ideas.
- Setup the telescope in the backyard and put a heavy duty tarp over it. This would protect it in mild conditions. Probably ok to leave during a nice night, but I wouldn't trust it with rain and wind. Also the backyard unfortunately has clear view of the street so I wouldn't trust this to thieves either.
- Put a small shed over it. Cut the shed in half with a hinged roof so I can literally lift the roof off. I don't have anything to tie this down to so I'd be worried about some of our massive storms here in Brisbane. But at least it would do more to keep the weather and potential people out.
- Suck it up and suffer.
I'm open to other ideas. I could probably spend around $200-300 on a solution. Oh and it if helps I don't have much equipment. I'm not trying to setup a full observatory with power etc. That stuff is light and I have no problems dragging that up and down the stairs along with an extension cord. However I would be looking for something to setup EQ6 with tripod, counterweights and OTA (8" SCT). So all in all fairly compact gear.
I was looking at a 1.5m x 1.5m shed as something to get me started.
Has anyone here had a similar budget permanent setup?