Well 3 years since i started and I have just finished putting the last coat of paint on!
The next stage is attaching a boat winch to roll the roof off, and possibly a 2nd one to roll the roof back on again.
The Observatory measures 4m x 4m which gives me a lot of room, but on the downside makes the roof a little heavy to roll on and off. I over engineered the frame due to the very high winds we get early spring, we had huge winds last year that blew over a 100 year old Cypress pine but observatory stayed all intact. I have used heavy duty (5mm thick) gate hinged locks to hold the roof down and so far no issues at all!
I have not insulated the observatory, its wrapped with the reflective sheet and thats it, at night time it cools very quickly.
Home built pier made from 200mm x 8mm pipe filled with sand, and 12mm plates for the base, gussets and leveling head (cutting 2 circles out of 12mm plate with a 5 inch grinder is not fun LOL)
The carpet I used was pulled out from a government building, they are rubber backed and synthetic so can withstand a lot of abuse, with the added bonus of saving an eye piece i dropped! (Phew) The squares worked out at 80c each so i bought 20 extra as replacements, no need to glue these down, so replacing 1 carpet square is just a case of lifting a corner and pulling it out!
I run 240 volts for the computer, lamp and lights. The mount and camera are run from a 12 volt supply (fused)
Im very happy with the way it turned out, if there was anything i would have changed it would be making the observatory smaller, 4m is over kill, i could fit another 3 telescopes in here! hmmmm... thats got me thinking
