Daydreaming and seeking opinions

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Hello all,

After buying my own house and moving into town mid year and getting somewhat settled in and a few things fixed up, it is now time to start thinking about some long term wish list items. One of these is to possibly setup my deep sky astrophotography equipment permanently. I really enjoyed experimenting with deep sky images early on in my astrophotography but lately, given the choice between grabbing my tripod and camera and doing night sky scapes, or lugging the mount and telescope out into the backyard and spending hours setting up, the former wins every time. If I had it permanently setup I believe that I would use it a lot more.

The property is located on the south eastern edge of town with no obtrusive streetlights in those directions. I have no shortage of sheds and the garden shed in the pictures is completely empty and surplus to my current storage needs, and I am wondering if this would be a good base for an observatory. After reading a lot of the threads in this section I realise that I would probably need to reinforce the walls, add insulation and water proofing, and come up with a way to either roll off the roof or louver it open. The garage it is next to is on the western side. There is a water tank on the southern side (the tree to the south is going soon), so if the roof was to roll off it would need to go into the lawn to the north. The concrete slab the shed is on looks to be at least 100mm thick and in terms of telescope mounting I think I would be looking at bolting a pier directly to this. I wouldn't be looking at hanging around the telescope much at all whilst imaging so vibration issues would be minor. I should state that the mount is a NEQ6 Pro and the telescope I currently run on it is an 200mm F/4 Newtonian.

Anyway....just looking for some opinions or ideas on what you would do with this structure if you were in my shoes (or should I forget about the shed and just do this http://www.duncankitchin.org/?blog=show&articleid=13). I would be looking to do it as cheap as possible, but on the plus side there is no SWMBO so I can do whatever I like .



Cheers

Greg

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Looks feasible to me. I'd be doing a half roof roll away to the north or maybe the north rolls over and above the south end, therefore no lawn coverage or poles needed. I'd have to think a bit about how I'd do it but always take advantage of what you got.

You say you have no shortage of sheds. Is this the best placed one to use ? Looks to be quite handy to run power into but has it got the best sky parameters ?

I certainly use my gear far more than I would if I had to shift it every time. Even just for working on setups etc. Today I installed BYE and tested my new camera over a few short sessions during the day and was still able to keep my wife happy with her jobs and requirements as well.

Start planning ....

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Originally Posted by ZeroID

Looks feasible to me. I'd be doing a half roof roll away to the north or maybe the north rolls over and above the south end, therefore no lawn coverage or poles needed. I'd have to think a bit about how I'd do it but always take advantage of what you got.

You say you have no shortage of sheds. Is this the best placed one to use ? Looks to be quite handy to run power into but has it got the best sky parameters ?

I certainly use my gear far more than I would if I had to shift it every time. Even just for working on setups etc. Today I installed BYE and tested my new camera over a few short sessions during the day and was still able to keep my wife happy with her jobs and requirements as well.

Start planning ....

A thousand apologies Brent. I completely forgot I had even started this thread and have only now got around to replying to you. Thank you very much for your thoughts and ideas. This shed is the only one currently available to be a type of observatory. The rest of the sheds I have are either garages, tool work shop or "man cave". It is located in about the best location on my property for sky viewing too.

My current thoughts are to run a beam off and alongside the garage next to the shed and have rollers hanging in it (i'm not sure of the technical term for the beam and roller system I have in mind but we use them at work for the irrigators to run on and I think they are used for the sides of tautliner trucks. I would then brace up the sides and roof of the shed for more stability and then cut the northern roof section clear and attach it to the rollers. I would then be able to lift up the eastern edge of that roof section and slide it back over the southern roof area and sit it on top of that roof. I need to sit down and draw up what I have in my head at some point but I think that is the most cost effective and simplest solution at the moment.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Ha ! As long as you haven't forgotten to work on the project. As I said previously I use my setup at least 50 x more than if I had to setup each night. I can be ready to go in 10 mins and if the clouds roll in I can be inside brewing a cuppa in another 10 mins. Or it can be running a session automatically and I can still be brewing a cuppa

I beefed up my upper walls with some pretty basic lengths of timber and insulation over here was not really needed. I'd still be ready to cut a hole in your floor and pour an isolated pier block. But if your not planning to be in while it's running a good guide setup can take care of any minute errors anyway.

Keep us posted.

[glend (Glen)]

A drawing is a good idea to organise your thoughts and work through the alternatives before you start. You will need a framework of some sort to support the rolling roof section and keep the walls from collapsing under the weight - metal shed walls don't have to support much other than the sheets model normally but you need the frame to keep its shape and prvide the rolling track. Just Google 'roll off roof observatory' and look at the images - there are some photos of metal shed modifucations that couild give you ideas.