Permanent Observatory

[Starkler (Geoff)]

If i were to ever have an observatory it would have to be a roll off roof type.
Why ?
For me half of the pleasure is being able to look up and enjoy natures dome, complete with all the little lights attached to it. Being under a man made artificial dome would kill a large part of the pleasure for me.

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi Lester ,
sorry for the slight OT Eric,
just saying thanks for the welcome and a howdy to a fellow West Coaster....
Gotta love it out here for our hobby/ obsession....

Cheers for now
Rich

[rogerg (Roger)]

Went out to the country with my portable setup this weekend. Had a few problems with trackingand all the rest so didn't end up with any great photo's. Came back late in the day after solar viewing and that night spent 30 mins starting up the observatory to take images all night before leaving it to go to bed.

It was then I was reminded just how useful an observatory is and how extremely lucky I am to have one. 30mins of setup I get more results than an all-nighter with the portable setup.

Roger.

[bluescope]

I thought you used your 300D and 350D for imaging Eric ?

I have my 3x2.4metre shed but haven't converted it yet. I keep my EQ6 in it and power supply and just moved a computer in recently but it still has stuff stored in it ( sofa bed, boxes etc ).
Looking at using eltrak system for rolling roof off ... it's a system for sliding doors which should work a treat when I get around to it.
www.eltrak.com.au

In the mean time it's not too hard setting up and breaking down but am looking forward to permanent setup with good polar alignment etc.

cheers

Originally Posted by EzyStyles

Hi Guys,

I was wondering how many people do infact have permanent observatories. I'm thinking of building a simple shed myself to save sometime carrying and setting up my equipment. It is such a hassle especially with heaps of cables and i do infact get abit lazy at times even though my commitment towards astrowork is 200%. And plenty of times after when you setup your equipment expecting a good night the clouds comes and ruin your night.. geeee's don't you hate that?

I have attached a pic what i have to setup every imaging session . Sitting on that blue plastic chair in the Melbourne cold isn't much fun either.

[g__day (Matthew)]

I'll post some shots on the weekend, I'm still along way from motorising and encoding the roof to slave it to the mount!

To me a observatory and permanent pier are excellent. My set-up time is literally about 7 minutes to be ready for astrophotography - power on PC, check Windows date and time, open dome, remove lens caps, enter PC's date and time into hand controller, slave scope to the PC Cartes Du Ciel, turn on camera's, start remote shutter and PhD. Go to a star, calibrate guidescope on a star, snap a shot, check focus is okay and you're away.

All this from ultra cheapo gear (CG5) which is overloaded (probably to 15 - 17KGs) = amazing! My goto's (awaking from hiberate) generally place a star on the Canon 400D's chip, which blow me away.

All I really should do now is celestial align the mount a tad better and tune backlash a bit more. At present I reckon I'm about 15 - 20 arc minutes off celestial South.

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

Hi Steve, this was an old post dugged out recently. I use to use the Meade DSI's . one for autoguiding and one for imaging. i stil use the dsi for autoguiding and the 300d modded for imaging. pior to the 300d, was the 350d unmodded which i still have now.
cheers for the roller door link. what a great idea for roll off roof!. i was thinking of just getting the outside shell and wack on a roll off roof thing? might have to investigate on this.. hmmm... i still carry and setup my equipment outside which takes wayy too long esp all the cables arghh.

[bluescope]

I thought you had changed from DSI, just checking !

I think the eltrak is a cool system because it is all purpose built and with the nylon wheels should work a treat. Also no worries with roof lifting because it all fits snug into the track. I've seen the components and it also would not weigh too much ..... the tracks come in 6 metre lengths .. perfect for a 3 metre shed with 1.5 metre sections rolling off to sides. My shed joins in the middle so I'll just use a couple of wing nuts to keep it tightly fit together when not in use.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Well yesterday I returned with the family from two frozen weeks at the Gold Coast. It was great to get back home.

So I open my observatory, power on the hibernated scope, it goes straight to Spica from CDC driving it. I re-attach the Canon 400D to it - it all still perfectly in focus, then I go inside run VNC and image Eta Carina, Scorpius and Omega for an few hours.

I finished around 11pm. It took about 5 minutes to go outside at the end of the night and power everything down. I noticed the temperature was just above 6 degrees inside the observatory!

Yah to do it yourself, remote viewing!

[thunderchildobs]

Pictures of the Thuderchild Obsevatory and some hintshttp://www.home.gil.com.au/~brdowns/build01.htmhttp://www.home.gil.com.au/~brdowns/build02.htmBrendan

[ispom]

in the middle of the picture you see the roll-off roof of my observatory

and in the foreground the shaddow of mine