How hot is your observatory?

[nobbygon (Angus)]

Hi,
I'm just in the very basic stages of planning a backyard observatory.

I'm wondering however, how hot do they get? And how hot is too hot?
I live in the hills district in Sydney where it can get as hot as 38 in the shade in summer. I'm just wondering how much hotter it would be inside a shed and if the heat may fry my scope/camera.

Obviously having a white/cream shed would work best. Would plastic/hard vinyl work better than a steel shed? What have you guys discovered works best?

Cheers,
Gus.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Ambient air temp. Surprisingly cooler than standing out in the sun. Ventilation helps. Being up off the ground to let air flow under and up helps even more.

[rogerg (Roger)]

These days mine gets only a couple of degrees above ambient.

Painting the roof pure white (was wheat colour) and white shade cloth on the north wall brought the temp down from 55 odd degrees it used to hit in summer on a 40 deg day.

40 is fine. 55 caused problems.

Tin cools down quick once in the shade.

[sheeny (Al)]

The general rule of thumb I believe is above 40°C is not good for electronics. I have no idea if that's a problem when they are not working however, but I think when operating you can expect them to be reliable below 40°C, and at some point above that they will start to do strange things or even fail.

Oberon is pretty cool most of the time, but in summer we occasionally get 35°C days. My obs used to get to about 40-45°C on such days, but I now have a solar fan ventilating the top of the dome - its rare for it to get above 40°C these days. I run a max-min thermometer in the obs at about the same level as the mount just so I know.

Al.

[DavidTrap (David)]

My observatory at Leyburn is made out of cold room panels - much cooler in there on a hot summer's day vs outside.

DT

[Kev11 (Kevin)]

David is on the money. Mine is insulated with 25mm polystyrene walls and roof (dome). Haven't been thru a summer yet but on past experience with sheds done same way I expect it to work. Also is not sealed (space between wall and dome) so as Paul says air flow helps. Tin sheds without insulation get very very hot under the Australian sun.

[nobbygon (Angus)]

Cold room panels? Interesting.

Thanks for the info so far. Anyone using a plastic/vinyl shed as an obs? I'm wondering if that would be cooler than tin/steel.

[Poita (Peter)]

Yep, I have built a lot of structures out of coolroom panels, you can often pick them up cheap and they offer fantastic insulation.

[morakini (Georgina)]

My observatory is also made out of cold room panels, easy to install and very useful !

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by nobbygon

Hi,
I'm just in the very basic stages of planning a backyard observatory.

I'm wondering however, how hot do they get? And how hot is too hot?
I live in the hills district in Sydney where it can get as hot as 38 in the shade in summer. I'm just wondering how much hotter it would be inside a shed and if the heat may fry my scope/camera.

Obviously having a white/cream shed would work best. Would plastic/hard vinyl work better than a steel shed? What have you guys discovered works best?

Cheers,
Gus.

I also live in the Hills district. However my observatory has been dismantled now. It was in use for 7 years

In the summer it quite often measured temperatures of 55 degrees C inside the dome. I took no special precautions witn my 12" LX200GPS and it was always available for use day and night. The observatory was constructed with green colorbond on a timber frame with a Sirius 2.3M dome (white)

Barry

[ZeroID (Brent)]

I think the rule with electronics and high temps are if you are using them at the time. Ambient too high and they won't cool properly and go phht !! All the smoke escapes.

If they are just sitting in a hot ob unpowered I don't see a problem as long as they aren't drowning in humidity. What happens to other components, plastic and the like is another issue all together.
As an earlier poster has said, plenty of ventilation, some shade mitigation and insulation can probably reslve most problems.

[Marke (Mark)]

I am in the Hills also , you can see how I built mine in this forum . I have Insulshed in the walls and roof and temps are staying down quite nicely , also had no probs with moisture or dust . I could maybe use an exhast fan if I wanted to get it even cooler but so far its coping fine .

[gregbradley]

I have Aircell Insulbreak behind walls and roof of my home observatory. That is working well.

I also have another with sarking under the roof and that helps but walls are uninsulated. It is acceptable.

So sarking under the roof would be the minimum.

Greg.

[leon]

When I had my Observatory I had one exhaust fan, and two smaller air circulating fans running 24/7 and it really made a big difference, one need to keep the air moving.

And another thing that helped is that i put a air space over the roof, something like a fly over a tent.

Leon