Solar Panels mounted on the adjacent garden shed. I purchased these through ebay from Outbaxcamping. They proved to be really helpful in post sales advice about how to best manage the setup and connection to the car battery.
The car battery housed in a disused plastic cat carrier. High technology, but it works. The solar panels keep the battery charged, so that I have continuous uninterrupted power. The connection to the telescope is through the solar power inverter not the battery. The connection uses the car cigarette lighter attachment provided with the telescope.
All that remains is to convert the garden shed to an office, install the laptop and camera (using the solar power), a comfortable chair, and perhaps a small fridge...
After that a larger observatory for my 10" dobsonian similarly connected.
The body is fibreglass - made from 2 recycled Tasmanian Atlantic salmon farm cages. The bottom part was cut down and inverted and the top part as it came. The dome was moulded from the best dish (not Dome) available, and so viewing to the horizon is restricted. However given the surrounding buildings and trees, it still provides 360' viewing but only down to about 40' elevation.
The dome track is fibre glassed rope, and the six wheels are simply cupboard rollers from Mitre 10, add a few handles to spin the dome with and its all done!
So its pretty basic.
However it keeps the dew off the lens, its warm and in Tasmania keeps the wind off the telescope, and the solar panels provide uninterrupted power at no cost!
Thanks Chris,
The greatest benefit I have already gained is not having to do an alignment every time I want to use the telescope. After the first alignment and refinement, all I have to do now is turn the power on, start viewing, and at the conclusion park the telescope and turn the power off. What luxury!
Now all I need is a similar solution for my 10" Dobsonian. However the Atlantic Salmon cages aren't wide enough, so I'm still restricted to setting this up on the deck at the rear of the house each night I want to use it. I use a camping Shower tent as my shelter for this. Hardly compares to the luxury of the observatory!
