Just looking for some advice on where to place an observatory. I have a screenshot of my house and backyard from google maps. As you can see, there is a swimming pool occupying most of the backyard. Now, my wife is telling me that we don't use the pool much, yet we spend a lot of money keeping it in operation. To the left there is a very tall gumtree on council property, so no touching it. At the back of the house, there is a sunroom, which is where the metal roof is, then you can see the neighbouring house. The round object at the end of the swimming pool is a spa, basically just air is pumped through it and it is basically useless.
Option 1 (wife preferred) - get rid of the pool, dig up the concrete & tile area (yes, the rest is concrete or tile), put in a wooden deck (my idea), leave the rest as either lawn, and have a veggie patch on the left side nearest the road.
Option 2 (my idea) - get rid of the spa, and replace it with an observatory.
Option 3 - buy a small farm and travel hours to get there and have my observatory there.
I might have to combine both, I suppose. What is not shown is that we have solar panels on our tile roof. I was entertaining the idea of having a spiral staircase going up to something like a mezzanine level where the telescope would be - maybe this is too much to ask for.
So the question is, given the constraints - where should I have my observatory? Where the spa currently is, or thereabouts?
Any advice would be most welcome.
-John
Last edited by John0z; 18-01-2013 at 06:18 PM.
Reason: Add screenshot
Option 1 (wife preferred) - get rid of the pool, dig up the concrete & tile area (yes, the rest is concrete or tile), put in a wooden deck (my idea), leave the rest as either lawn, and have a veggie patch on the left side nearest the road.
John, you will probably find filling in the pool is expensive. We considered it the last time our pool needed repairs but the estimate was several times the cost of repair, refilling, electricity and several years of chemicals. We would have had to have it clean filled, and tamped every 300mm and then inspected to council approved density.
The spa area would be cheaper but how much will the house affect your view?
We can't agree on where to buy a dark sky property to build a permanent obs with "holiday" accomodation.
Thanks for your comment. Yes, it would be expensive. Current regulations require the pool to be registered by around September 2013, which means that we would need to have it fenced as per regulations.
Due to the height of the trees to the west, I was thinking about the spa area as being the location. I have one of the ASI cameras with a 150 degree wide lens on it - maybe I use this to take a few photos at different locations and heights. That would give me more information.
Hi John.
You're well and truly in the light halo of greater Sydney so above all else, this will set some limits on what you can and can't do from home. An observatory will certainly help, but it won't be a complete answer to light pollution in your area. Your imaging would, almost of necessity, have to lean towards narrowband where your use of filters could avoid a good deal of that light problem.
Looking at your site, it appears to be on a corner - that big tree being more or less at the apex of the corner. The tree might actually block a bit of street lighting which I assume is all over that corner. And your house and the neighboring house (lot 34) would also shade a bit if you were to set up on the site seemingly occupied by the spa/kiddie pool. It would be a compromise of course because while you may be able to avoid direct light interference, your minimum elevation will be affected. That may not be a total loss however because you will rarely want to image below about 20-25 degrees in any direction.
Hi John,
If you're even slightly entertaining the idea of buying a small farm to satisfy your astronomical passion, what about the cheaper option of joining an astro society with a dark sky location near Sydney and setting up a small obs there?
Just looking for some advice on where to place an observatory......
Option 3 - buy a small farm and travel hours to get there and have my observatory there.
.....
Any advice would be most welcome.
-John
back in 2000 I chose your option 3.
Rural 250k NW of melbourne in the Grampians.
A 5 hour round trip.
I observed most weekends camping on site for 12 months with just a Pier and Deck before building a ROR observatory.
Finally in 2002 I gave in to luxury and built a small home.
I just wanted to thank everyone for their comments so far. I have taken a photo with my ASI120MM camera - this image is about where the spa currently is, at a height of about 1m.
Regarding getting rid of the pool - I did find from google that someone has had experience with the pool removal, which was about $10k including removal of the concrete and putting back filler and topsoil - so I will see if I can get a quote from the same people who did this one.
Ok - my wife said that if I touch the spa, I should get rid of the pool - no half measures...
Re the rural site, we did go for a drive down south, and headed west from Mittagong - after an hour of those winding roads, my wife was against getting anything around there. I.e. all those blind corners on a single lane unsealed road with the mountain side dropping away on one side or the other. So it looks like, some place that is reached without winding roads, or steep dropoffs.
Peter, yes, we are on a corner - the tree is very tall so my view to the west would be very limited. The pool area has no sensor lights so probably the best place for me. Direct lighting from streetlights - only one is visible, and that one has the bezel hanging down off a chain - must have come adrift, but easy to block off. The neighbouring house nearest us is the garage - so no lights.
Matt, if there is a astro society nearby that would allow semi-permanent telescopes, that would certainly be an option.
Least of all, Rob - thanks for your comment - I would love to go live in a rural area, away from the city lights, but I don't think my family are quite up to this as yet. 5 hr round trip sounds good - but around Sydney, there is really nothing affordable within about 3 hrs drive that doesn't require me to sell the house.
Maybe what I should do, is to actually get the telescope outside near the spa, and try doing some observing and imaging instead of just talking about it.
and built a small home.
