Constructing my Observatory "Stage 5 complete & Finished"

[astro_south (Andrew)]

Looking great Tony. Will you be doing up invitations to the ribbon cutting ceremony soon?

Are you going to seal the edge of the roof near the rollers from dust and critters? The ventilation would be good for cool down, but eventually I think you would end up with some serious dust on the equipment inside. What do others do with a similar setup?

[Striker (Tony)]

5 stages Mike.......

Stage 4 will be the building finished.
Stage 5 will be the finished product with scope and interior finished and painted..and maybe landscaped.

Andrew...its not finished...it has to have flashing put up yet.

And yes the opening ceremony will be televised with my beautiful Delta Goodrim cutting the ribbon.

[Striker (Tony)]

Stage 4 complete

I still have 1 facia to go on as you can see by the gap....its all undercoated with the just the scope set up with out the computer......just finished filling up all 920 nail holes from the air gun with putty.....that was fun..."NOT"

I tested out the scope last night for the very first time while my family was over for dinner.....everything seems to be working properly...big test will be once its all set up with goto and guiding enabled....

Exterior will be finished mid week...then I will be working on the interior.

Here's some pic's of my progress.

http://www.users.on.net/~striker/stage4c.jpg

http://www.users.on.net/~striker/stage4d.jpg

http://www.users.on.net/~striker/stage4b.jpg

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Yeah that looks ok

looking smick Tony. I know how tall you are so how are you going to reach that eyepiece?

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Is it just an illusion or will the roof hit the scope if you try to close it with the scope pointed up ?

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I was wondering that too Geoff. But i though 1 stir a day was enough

[Striker (Tony)]

Answer.....tilt the scope to the side...I can set the scope on its side with around 25 cm clearance.....

My measurements for the pier height and wall height is about perfect....if the pier was lower you would lose a fair bit of view from the walls and you would be bending over for viewing all the time...

For 90% of viewing the scope is at pefect height....no need for any ladder or stool.

[Rodstar (Rod)]

Tony, looking better and better all of the time. Congratulations. I know where I am visiting next time I am in Brisbane!

Are you going to keep it white? I assume observatories are usually white to keep them as cool as possible....You could try a hot shade of pink? (Just a suggestion).

[Striker (Tony)]

NO......the undercoat is white.....the misses hated it...so I have got a nice bright fresh Blue with some white features....

[stringscope (Ian)]

Looks fantastic Tony. I am really envious!!

Is the roof insulated?? I imagine you will get a fair bit of raidant heat off the inside off the roof from the Brisbane sun.

Have you got a dust cover for the scope when not in use? CAS has a 14" LX200 in a similar (very well ventilated) roll off roof observatory on Mt Stromlo (one of the few to survive intact) we (CAS) are getting a made to measure dust cover made for the scope. I was up there several weeks ago during daylight and the amount of dust in the observatory was most noticeable. Admittedly there is a fair bit of construction work up there at present.

Cheers,

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Thats looking awesome Tony, I clap my hands to you.

How is the Astromecanicca kit going? how well does it perform?

[acropolite (Phil)]

Tony Wrote

Answer.....tilt the scope to the side...I can set the scope on its side with around 25 cm clearance.....

Tony, If it were me I would be putting some sort of interlock to stop rolling the roof open or closed when the scope is in a vulnerable position, maybe a lightbeam sensor with a couple of solenoids.

[iceman (Mike)]

Looks fantastic Tony! How did first light go?

[Striker (Tony)]

Everything is going well......I have only done the very basic tests....nothing to bother writing home about...just wanted to test collimation on visuals.....I wont be testing the Astromeccancca kit until I have it all hooked up to my PC which should be later on this week......there was some software and driver issues regarding the kit but this seems to have been fixed.......I also have to properly polar align.

The roof will be insulated but not yet...maybe over the coming months....

I have the scope covered at the moment but I also would like some permanant dust cover...even something that is insulated....will check it out.

OK gtg...back to the painting.

[ving (David)]

looking great tony. so its usable now huh?

you going to put in a water feature?

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

looking great

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Tony,

I am not too clued up on the weather up there but is there any chance of condensation dripping off the tin roof onto your goodies?

Down here condensation is so bad it's as if it is raining inside if a tin roof is not lined.

Just a thought to keep your goodies dry.

[Striker (Tony)]

Not sure Ken....but everything will be covered anyway.....cant be too careful.


Just got a quote for putting the power on to the observatory......OMG.

Lets just say I am looking at alternative options......lol

[xstream (John)]

Well done Tony!

Extension lead and powerboard looking good is it mate?

[mch62 (Mark)]

Just thought I would give my initial impression on the Astromeccanica upgrade on Tony's EQ6 mount.
As requested by Tony I polar aligned his new set up last night for him and did a few other tests for him as well.
I steered Tony towards this kit as it has a very good feature which reduces the overall PE of the EQ6 as standard as well as other mounts via mechanical means.

By removing the intermediate motor gear box a source of PE , overall PE is reduced.
You still have the PE of the main worm and gear wheel .
The back lash is also reduced and only the play between worm and wheel remains.
Instead of a spur or planetary gear box a timing gear set up is used and the reduced ratio of 4:1 and the increase motor torque allows for high slew speeds.

The other good feature is the increase torque of the new motors allows for heavier pay loads.

The pictures don't really show it but Tony's set up is quite big and heavy with the ED80 sitting on top of the C11 the weight is quite a distance from the centre of balance of the mount and as a result 4 , yes 4 , counter weights are required..

The AM kit showed no signs of struggling and the motors were very quite.
Max slew is also quite high 4degs /sec +.

After polar aligning using the in built polar scope on OCTANS (and yes they are just visible from Brisbane ) and a fine drift alignment , Tony fine tuned the tracking rate .
It was little fast at first.
The visible PE was quite small and done at over 600x , the amount used for drift alignment as well.
This lack of PE correction was always on our minds as the DA1 controller does not have PE correction but relies on auto tracking for corrections during imaging.
The guys from AM stated PE will not be of a concern with the kit.

We didn't get time at this stage to measure or graph it but over the coarse of doing the fine adjustment , test stars remained within the inner circles of the illuminated Eye piece and the PE seamed quite small.
It will be interesting to get an AVI of it , Tony.
Further refinement and tweaking will see even a better result.

I am sure Tony will give further updates as he explores the functions and adjustments , but over all a very impressive upgrade worth it for the power handling increase alone.

The only major gripe is the very basic destruction manual.

Not for the beginner not familiar with basic terminology of mounts and drive trains.
I am sure Tony will go into the fun we had a week ago trying to figure out the soft ware.

Any way look forward to the grand opening Tony , and it looks like you are going to beat me to the punch there.

Had fun playing with your toys.

Mark