As some may know l am in the process of building a split roll -off roof observatory and thought l would post a few pics of the progress.
If anybody has any questions l would be happy to help in any way l can so they can avoid some of the pitfalls that l found along the way.
The pictures won't be in any particular order but l'm sure you'll get the idea.
The floor is actually over 2m above the ground so the pier itself is around 3.3m long this meant that as well as being on a concrete base it required 4 stainless steel guide wires to be placed about a metre from the top, lwas concerned about the pier being so long but once the guide wires were tensioned with turnbuckles there is no obvious movement when using the scope.
The top mounting plates are 8mm thick and levelled using 18mm allthread.
Underneath the observatory there is also a seperate room built to house the imaging equipment on those really cold wintery nights, that is if and when l get the hang of it.
I'll post more as things progress and hope that some of you can learn from my mistakes. l
wow excellent mick! i'm very impressed (and insanely jealous of both you and paul h now ) I would definitely like for you to post your progress reports so that we can all see how it's supposed to be done.
Last edited by silvinator; 03-03-2005 at 09:29 PM.
This is the other roof frame waiting to be lined with .6mm galvanised steel and then painted with baked enamel.
Building something like this should be done with galvanised steel to ensure that it will never rust.
The baked enamel that l used to paint the roof had a flattening base added for the inside to reduce any chance of glare.
That's looking fantastic Mick.. I'm envious of you guys who have homes where such an observatory can be made without worrying about neighbours houses, trees etc.
I've got big gumtrees in my backyard (or my neighbours yard) which block out the northwest and south skies.. so there's no 1 spot I can leave my scope, I have to shuffle it around the yard when I want views in particular directions.
Nice Mick, much larger scale project that mine. Interesting design features too. Keep those shots coming.
One comment though, I do think that you ought to go with a wedge. You will find imaging a lot easier. If you don't want to though I have a field derotator for sale and this would help you a lot with your current setup. Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks Paul, l am interested in the field de-rotator so let me know the details.
The reason l haven't put the LX on a wedge was because l was still pondering between actually putting it on an EQ mount, and doing away with the fork.
There seems to be a lot of divided opinion on the matter, fork stability and balance etc verses the advantage of the EQ although the viewing angles of the EQ sometimes leave a lot to be desired.
Secondly, l am considering a 14"RCX, l actually spoke to Michael at Bintel today about one and they are about 2-3 months away although buying a new model and hoping all the bugs are ironed out worries me a little, anyway the de rotator does interest me so let me know.
4 of these runners allow the roof to roll apart quite smoothly, they're 50mm diameter and will support 40kg each although each roof section only weighs 65kg.
I can see daylight through some gaps there. What are you doing about dust flying in? Or are you just going to keep everything covered when not being used?
) I would definitely like for you to post your progress reports so that we can all see how it's supposed to be done.
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Better make sure you've got endcaps on those runner rails. Looks like a long way up to lift that if it runs off the end 
