They are finally here; I had my name on the list for a while and got impatient!
The setup looks good and fairly robust as they claimed.
The only question / comment I have was that a few users in the U.S. recommended not to put the pier in the exact middle as you can’t look straight up. For those who have done this (looks like you) I see that in the 'Sky Shed Pod' Yahoo forum they detail a retro-fitable slide rail that offsets the roof few hundred mm to allow zenith views. I see these are for sale now (called Zenith Tables) fresh on the website, check with Wayne.
Let us know how you find it. - I was looking at the Neutron Blue glow model.
They are finally here; I had my name on the list for a while and got impatient!
The setup looks good and fairly robust as they claimed.
The only question / comment I have was that a few users in the U.S. recommended not to put the pier in the exact middle as you can’t look straight up. For those who have done this (looks like you) I see that in the 'Sky Shed Pod' Yahoo forum they detail a retro-fitable slide rail that offsets the roof few hundred mm to allow zenith views. I see these are for sale now (called Zenith Tables) fresh on the website, check with Wayne.
Let us know how you find it. - I was looking at the Neutron Blue glow model.
Yeah, Dave they are finally here... and they are robust. I'm really impressed with the quality as supplied.
I was originally concerned about not being able to see zenith, but after discussions with other POD users at the time I was all but convinced that it wasn't that big a deal... it only affects objects at the same declination as your latitude.
I thought about offsetting the pier, but to offset the pier is just a compromise. It's just a matter of making the decision about which declinations you are prepared to tolerate the "blind spot" at culmination. Of course, fork mounted SCTs on wedges have other reasons to offset the pier.
The POD Zenith Table (PZT) was already being used in prototype form when I ordered, so the problem seemed to me to be trivial. If I find the "blind spot" at zenith to be a problem I'll build or buy a PZT.
Having said all that, I deliberately designed my pier to be as short as possible - well, as short as I am comfortable working with. The theory is the closer you are to the top of the dome, the bigger the blind spot will be, so I'm trying to keep my scope low. This is a change for me. For as long as I've been doing astronomy, I've stood up to observe. I now have an observing chair and will be operating mostly sitting down.
I'll keep you posted how it goes. Theory and practical are often different.
I completed assembling the POD yesterday (all except caulking around the bottom) so it was time to start setting up the scope.
Oops! The mount won't fit on the pier adapter plate ...
It seems I had assembled it all previously, but not with the nuts and studs in the adapter plate... the nuts were fouling the azimuth adjusting screws. So change of plan today... I replaced the studs with 100mm set screws an all is well.
So tonight I've started assembling the scope on the pier and moving stuff into the POD. As it i going to be wet the next few days (I can't imagine why?) I caulked the bottoms of the walls (even though the silastic I have isn't the best stuff for the job, it's better that nothing.
I have a few jobs to do to set the scope up properly:
Modify the lead to my dew heater controller with a plug so I can run the cable through the conduit;
polar align, of course;
maybe source some fresh adhesive backed velcro - some of the stuff I have wants to peel off rather than the velcro come apart... I think it's old... the adhesive is hardly sticky at all!
hi al finished the rest of dome today put the floor in layed vinyl down ready for my scope one prob been waiting for my electrician to wire everything up dame mates when hes done in goes the scope ill post some pictures when done
peter
What a glorious night! Not much breeze, not too cold...
I am in my POD on my first night of real use. Just finished drift aligning. I'll fine tune that later with K3ccdtools. I'm very happy with the markout and forming of the slab and pier footing... The slab and footing bolts for the pier were aligned with true north/south by compass. Just to be on the safe side I drilled extra tapped holes for the azimuth stop in my pier adapter plate... but I don't need them! The azimuth adjustment screws are <3mm off centreline.
I have already decided that the bracket for my hand control needs a mod. It positions the hand control well for sitting in low positions, but is hard to read the control if standing. I'll also make it a litle more compact too.
BTW M42 is looking as spectacular as ever! Seems a shame to have to go to bed just to go to work in the morning...
My plan had always been to power the observatory on solar, espacially when originally it was going to be well out in the paddock. As mentioned earlier, I had to bring the observatory into the house yard to protect it from a windsucking horse, and that is really what made the difference...
A few weeks ago I started having problems with my 38AH battery pack that I power my laptop with. It turns out it dropped a cell... probably from cycling it too deep when using the lappy. It was a jump starter pack, so the battery was a cranking battery rather than a deep cycle.
So I had a few options:
Buy another jump starter pack
Buy a more appropriate battery (and charger, etc) for the job but keep it portable
Install solar on the obs now
Put power (240V) on to the observatory
I quickly decided the portable battery option was not preferred. It is great to have the scope always set up but shuffling batteries before and after sessions is a pain (how quickly we get lazy!). So I decided to start the solar design.
This is where some tough decisions had to come in. To run the whole obs on solar for the periods of time I wanted it to be capable of (8 hours per night) was becoming problematic. The biggest user is, of course, the laptop. Without that, solar would be quite viable.
So I priced getting the power run out to the obs and it was a fraction of the price especially if I dug the trench myself. So I now have power onto the obs, which will power the laptop directly, but I can now also move the chargers for my power tank and jump starter pack into the observatory so I'm not shuffling batteries.
Going solar may still be an option down the track, just to run the scope and dew heaters.
A few months ago I fried my big jump starter pack, which I used to use to power my laptop. That pushed me to put power on the obs to run the lappy and anything else that needs it. That's been a great move since I now have an iPod docking station so can play as much music as I like while I'm observing.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a few dumb moments in succession resulting in me cooking my other jump starter pack - the one I used to power my dew heaters. So I bit the bullet and installed a deep cycle battery to run the scope and dew heaters.
The battery is a 100AH sealed AGM deep cycle battery (it's something like 96 AH C10, or 108 AH C100). It sits in a new battery box down the back of the power bay (behind the power tank in one of the attached photos). I also made up a power box that includes 3 car cigarette lighter sockets, a battery voltage guage (and momentary action push button) and fuse.
Everything in the power box is recycled from the 2 dead jump start packs, except for the box itself and a BP connector and a few screws.
I had a solar battery charger laying around doing nothing so that now provides a trickle charge to the battery (600mA), and I bought a new fully automatic battery charger to maintain the new battery. It is current selectable (2A, 4A or 6A) so depending on how much I've used the battery I can select an appropriate charge rate taking into account when I plan to get back to it to disconnect. I modified the leads on the battery charger so I can use a cigarette lighter plug to charge through the power box (and I can still attach the battery clamps if I want to use it on other batteries).
The solar battery charger leads were thin enough to run over the wall between 2 of the dome support wheels, and fit down the gap between two of the wall panels. A full solar cell would require much heavier cables and either drilling holes through the walls or a conduit in the floor (which is a bit late now).
First light for the new power suystem should be tonight!
Shooting the horse is probably a bit extreme but works
rofl! Sorry, just that cracked me up. I found this hilarious image on a flickr group, was a photographic assignment on Gary Larson's Far side cartoons. I guess this person is going to have an easy study on equine vet stuff..
Sheeny that observatory is a work of art! Very impressed.
Question, when you open it up to observe, what do you do about the mozzies?! This is a Newcastle question. You probably think of Newcastle as that city on the Hunter that produces 35% of NSW GDP, but there's another more important stat, it has 65% of NSW mozzies. Insect repellant also repels girls and causes cancer probably and premature deterioration of mirror surfaces. I think we need a perfectly transparent glass roof to point our scopes at.
Apart from mozzies you seem to have thought of everything, hope you have clear skies tonight, a bit cloudy here.
nice work Al LOL i have 3 of those 100 ampers - just never seems quite enough
Give me a little while, Dave, I'll catch up!
Quote:
Originally Posted by dpastern
rofl! Sorry, just that cracked me up. I found this hilarious image on a flickr group, was a photographic assignment on Gary Larson's Far side cartoons. I guess this person is going to have an easy study on equine vet stuff..
Dave
I can appreciate that... the girls mightn't...
Quote:
Originally Posted by stephend
Sheeny that observatory is a work of art! Very impressed.
Question, when you open it up to observe, what do you do about the mozzies?! This is a Newcastle question. You probably think of Newcastle as that city on the Hunter that produces 35% of NSW GDP, but there's another more important stat, it has 65% of NSW mozzies. Insect repellant also repels girls and causes cancer probably and premature deterioration of mirror surfaces. I think we need a perfectly transparent glass roof to point our scopes at.
Apart from mozzies you seem to have thought of everything, hope you have clear skies tonight, a bit cloudy here.
Mozzies?
What mozzies?
Having grown up on the central coast and lived and worked in Newcastle (and Giru in FNQ!) I know all about mozzies... It's jujst another item on the list of reasons why I like it here.
Here's a couple of (not so good) shots of the new rig... my C11 and ED80 side by side on the EQ6. (My flash wouldn't play the game - maybe too much contrast between the white of the mount and the black of the obs walls)
I finally managed to get it all mounted and balanced this afternoon. Rain stopped play before I could get both scopes optically aligned, so that's the next job.
I plan to use an Orion XY guide star finder to allow me to leave both scopes "rigidly" mounted and aiming at the same point.
Looking forward to getting back into some imaging. The C11 should go well on the moon and planets to start with, and the ED80 on paper should allow me to improve the resolution of the spectra I capture with the SA from about 34Å with the C8 @ f/6.3 to nearly 20Å. It will be an interesting experiment to see if I can achieve it.
Not sure what I'll achieve with the C11 and the SA... it depends if I can use the second focuser to achieve a greater back focus and hence greater dispersion.
So, I'll soon be playing about learning to guide... I think it'll become necessary using the ED80 for spectra even if not capturing DSO's.
Buying the C11 was a bit earlier than I'd planned but when it came up, I decided to grab it.
Long term the plan is to get something like an SM60 and BF10 for the ED80, maybe a QHY8 for DSO's and ultimately an ST7 and SGS combo (dream) but that might all take some time, and depending on opportunities might differ a little bit.
I already have all the business for EQMOD, but after an initial play I think I'll leave that on the back burner a while... too much technology for me to sanely sort out in one hit.
Al.
Last edited by sheeny; 28-10-2009 at 06:43 PM.
Reason: typos
That looks cool Al. Fair bit of weight on the mount with your ED80 as well. Does it take the load easy? I'm asking coz I have a C11 and ED80 too but I never tried to have them both on the G11 at the same time. You should get a dew shield for your C11. I did one out of flute panel and flocked it. The length of the OTA. Keeps the corrector plate nice and dry and increases contrast heaps too.
That looks cool Al. Fair bit of weight on the mount with your ED80 as well. Does it take the load easy? I'm asking coz I have a C11 and ED80 too but I never tried to have them both on the G11 at the same time. You should get a dew shield for your C11. I did one out of flute panel and flocked it. The length of the OTA. Keeps the corrector plate nice and dry and increases contrast heaps too.
Thanks Marc.
Yes, I think it's probably pushing the limits for the EQ6, but I hope not too much. I noticed Richard Omeara had his ED80 piggybacked on the C11 before I bought it - both on his EQ6... so I figure the side by side setup should be a little easier than that.
Before I got the obs, I used to use both a dew shield and dew heater on my C8. Since having the POD, I have found that I haven't needed the dew shield, just the heater... so I've gone that way with the C11 for now. Hopefully it will be OK, because there's noticably less space around the scopes in the POD now than there was with just the C8. If I have to go to a dew shield as well, that will only get worse.
I thought I'd bump the thread with a star trail shot taken over the POD while in action tonight. Would've like to get some longer trails, but I have to work tomorrow and the camera battery was just about flat whe I finished anyway. Maybe another time...
.![[1ponders]'s Avatar](../vbiis/customavatars/avatar45_9.gif){kind=avatar}
The mount won't fit on the pier adapter plate 
...
... the nuts were fouling the azimuth adjusting screws. So change of plan today... I replaced the studs with 100mm set screws an all is well
. As it i going to be wet the next few days (I can't imagine why?
First Light (and Comms) from the POD!
and the camera battery was just about flat whe I finished anyway. Maybe another time...
