just a whinge at the universe

[bloodhound31]

Do a full alignment on your telescope. mark and dig three holes in your grass where the legs are, about a foot deep by a shovel width. Fill them with rapid-set concrete up to three inches below the surface. make sure they are all level.

Wait a day for them to set. Re align your gear on the dry concrete, then pour in one more inch of wet concrete around your tripod feet. Let the concrete set again. Pull your tripod out.

From then on, you will have three exact and unchanging locations for your tripod feet. The mower will go straight over the top of them no problems and the grass will all but hide them.

Baz.

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by bloodhound31

Do a full alignment on your telescope. mark and dig three holes in your grass where the legs are, about a foot deep by a shovel width. Fill them with rapid-set concrete up to three inches below the surface. make sure they are all level.

Wait a day for them to set. Re align your gear on the dry concrete, then pour in one more inch of wet concrete around your tripod feet. Let the concrete set again. Pull your tripod out.

From then on, you will have three exact and unchanging locations for your tripod feet. The mower will go straight over the top of them no problems and the grass will all but hide them.

Baz.

This is a common idea and a good one. In Canberra it would work well. Unfortunately there are some locations - such as my present backyard - where it won't work as well. The problem is a wet climate and soils with a significant amount of swelling-shrinking clays. Any small piece of concrete will move about as the soil wets and dries. During major droughts even large structures around here can be affected. If you are in such a place checking the alignment regularly is a good idea.

[Octane (Humayun)]

+1 for the standard Telegizmo's. +2 for the 365 version.

I've left my scope with the standard cover out over Christmas and Easter where it rained 3-4 days non-stop and the gear underneath was dry.

The standard cover isn't that expensive and does a wonderful job. If you've got your own home and a permanent backyard to set up in, then the 365 version is an excellent investment.

H

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Here is my Observatory temporarily setup at my dark site outside Newcastle. The pedistal, NJP head with guide scope attached are under the covers, holds up very well for shorter stints.

Cloth + heavy garbage bag + heavy vinyl cover = easy! If I had it in my backyard this would be fine on a permanent basis IMO.

Mike

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

I just wanted to say that compared to the amounts many amateurs (including myself) spend on telescopes, eyepieces and imaging gear a basic roll-off obs is actually very cheap and simple to build.
Here is a link to a page I did to show the construction of my first obs: http://titirangiobservatory.com/obse...struction.html

This is a very basic project, I purchased a kitset garden shed and converted the standard roof into a roll-off version. It took 9 days to complete (= 4.5 weekends), everything included from beginning to end - note the dates under the photos. Before I started I actually thought it was going to be much more difficult than it turned out to be, and I had really great fun along the way.
I have since moved house, and that meant I had to build yet another obs...! This time I made it a bit more flash which I might upload some pics of some day. But that first obs served me very well and I just wanted to let you guys know for a bit of inspiration.

So, provided you have a backyard and of course provided your other half etc. agrees then an observatory is definitely not out of reach if you have a few basic handyman skills.

I hope you guys all get an obs some day soon - with the great imaging talents displayed here on the forums you definitely all deserve the best housing for your gear

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Originally Posted by SkyViking

So, provided you have a backyard and of course provided your other half etc. agrees

and therein lies the first hurdle...

first work on getting them to agree to a pier before I start talking about an obs...

[Moonman (Michael)]

"Startarg" from Andy's shotglass is a good little program to aid drift allignment. I dare say after a few more attempts you'll get that 45 minutes down to half and hour.

17 trips is a lot. I have a similar dilema to you with setting up. I've found that preplanning and organisation is the key. There's always stuff I can do earlier on while it is still daylight to save time later on.

I plan to eventually setup with a permanent pier. I think ultimately this the way to go. A surrounding observatory a mere cosmetic detail!(Joke)

Keep up the good work!

[Jen]

Originally Posted by Ric

If I had a dollar for everytime that has happened to me over the years, I'd probably have an Obs by now.

Cheers

lol Ric

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Imagine the anguish when the cloud comes over then, or the lappie fails, or I forget a critical component...like the whole lappie

Mike

for some reason Mike i have an image in my head of you having a temper tantrum out in the middle of the field looking for your laptop

[pgc hunter]

Originally Posted by erick

I've been away all weekend, but I had calculated that the terminator was crossing Plato this morning and I still have not properly seen the small craters within its walls. So I said I must give it a go.

Went to bed with cloudy skies. Got up at 3:30 and - only scattered cloud and nice bright Moon fairly well positioned. Had the Turbo Starcatcher set up in the driveway and collimated in 15 min. All rugged up against the cold - started looking.

Yes, terminator was nicely placed on Plato BUT the seeing was shocking! Couldn't get stars to points; the Moon was a jelly and Jupiter a fuzzball with only hints of the major band. Persisted for half an hour, saw some interesting (low resolution only) features on the Moon, eg. the sunlit tip of the central peak in Eratostheses, then it clouded over, so I packed up and was back in bed by 5.

Edit - had a thought. I wonder if my mirror was a bit too warm. I noted it was at 11 deg when I took it out from its storage location. When I put it away about an hour later, outside temp was 3 deg and the mirror was down to 7 deg?

That's a massive difference...did you have your fans running before observing? I can get my mirror down to within 2C of ambient, which produces much better images than when the delta Temp is 5C or more.

Plato should be mint in your scope, I've seen 12 craterlets in mine and have resolved crater pits as small as 1-1.5km in diameter.

[erick (Eric)]

I just pulled it out, set up and started observing - not time for all that fan-blowing cool-down stuff that I would do if I set up in the late afternoon. Didn't think it would be an issue. I still think the fast seeing problem was dominating at that time.

[pgc hunter]

No cooldown = poor views. I know for a fact...I've tried viewing striaght after bringing the scope out and don't even bother, I run the fans atleast for an hour which results in a noticable improvement in the view, even in substandard seeing.

[pgc hunter]

So far this month, Melbourne is averaging 1, that's right, ONE hour of sun per day. That is 5 hours/day cloudier than Hobart

Melbourne is truly living up to its grundgy climate reputation (as it always does anyway).

[rmcconachy]

I wouldn't call the last few weeks good by any means but it's not that bad Sab. It is winter after all. Like Eric, I did a little observing from my backyard in Ringwood early Monday morning and again early this evening. To avoid having a long cool down wait I only dragged out the 4" refractor.