Hi everyone, just thought I'd share this fun little project with you.
While a mate and I are building 2 larger RoR sheds, I thought I'd also build a quickie, large enough to house my little wider field setup with the Skywatcher Star Adventurer GTI mount.
We're a farm here with a few spare IBC tanks laying around, so the brain started chugging...an already sturdy framework, ready to mount insulation and old farm corrugated iron onto! I even have some already scrounged cooler room insulated walls to cut into a roof.
So while we were getting the massive pier foundations of the main 2 obsys poured, I dug out another 50cm3 hole (a bit bigger than that) and hand-bashed 2 6 ft star pickets into said hole for extra reinforcement. Yes that kept me fit that day! Buddy then worked his magic to produce the world's strongest formwork for the base. It's next to a perfectly placed power outlet I had installed and WiFi 30m from house runs great.
Might eventually motorise the roof. Eventually ...
I'd love to see more on this... Good cheap solution that should be easy enough to source...
Im planning on building a mini-observatory for my rig (literally big enough for the rig to fit in - nothing else) I'll run a powerlead to it when I'm going to use it, manually flip the lid up, unpark the scope and start imaging... My main concern is children in the back yard not being able to touch/lean on/pull at anything on the rig - so it's more about creating a safe spot for me to leave the gear set up for multiple night imaging runs more than anything else...
My rig is tiny - the whole thing can be carried in one hand (65mm apo, light weight equatorial fork mount... maybe 18kgs total weight... so its not so much the size, I'd just love to be able to get it aligned really really well, then leave it for a couple of weeks at a time, just flip open a lid and start imaging!
Slow progress, due to constant farm jobs taking priority. Story of my life....
Precision angle grinding complete. Starting to consider if I keep the upper roof beams that will hold the insulation and tin twice as long, to cater for a future motorized RoR, at this tiny scale it's pretty easy to manage.
Looking good Simon, cool solution, intrigued to see the finished product ...farm jobs, I can imagine Eagleview is not even a farm and there is still a lot to do...I need a tractor ...and a Polaris...and...
Yeah Mike, extra land becomes exponentially more demanding. But it's great eh. Big and dark skies, space, literally! It's a good excuse to keep fit.
Yeah, a tractor with a front end loader is a game changer.
Hmm, now pondering....I wonder, if I placed the IBC frame on a turntable, could I motorise it and turn it into an ultra cheap dome??
Maybe for next time
Yeah Mike, extra land becomes exponentially more demanding. But it's great eh. Big and dark skies, space, literally! It's a good excuse to keep fit.
We have Highland Copperheads up there, so walking around weed spraying in extensive grass tussocks, their favourite habitat, is nerve racking ..I wear high rubber wellies They are rather timid luckily...still, wouldn't want to tread next to, or on, one!
Copperheads and Tiger snakes used to be my main concern running around a dark yard looking at the stars, blindly stepping about searching for things in the night sky.
Thankfully where I am now I don't get snakes though a neighbour did see one once but it was gone before the police got here (and she didn't call me with a spade). In saying that I mostly used to pick tigers up with a hoe and move them up the back when I was at the base of a mountain and they came through my yard to get to the creek across the road.
I don't like killing anything.
As a snake person (I have 10 snakes as pets), seeing a snake in the dark is not a concern for me, but a highlight of an evening... not seeing the snake in the dark is far more of a problem! Hahaha
Gawd, hadn't really thought about snakes at night. Though I do tread carefully at any time, as we have seen browns. Thankfully our main obsys are set up in the goat field (thinking of naming the overall array the GOAT, just need the words that make up the acronym!). And the ultimate irony is that, the obsys are so well built that they'll be here long after us, and in the end, most likely be used as ...goat sheds
Spiders are a pain too, just evicted one from my allsky cam and wiped some surface spray on it (not the spider ..)
I always say, nature tries to win. The trees always win. Think about it...
Noted! Our goats are already stress testing the foundations of TWO larger obsys we are constructing, big enough for a decent sized Newtonian and maybe another wide field setup.
Update - in between MORE FENCING and repairs for the darned goats, I managed to Slip in a little more build work. Finished the timber framing to support the insulation and tin for the Microshed (TM Simmo Industries), and worked with the GMN Guys to set up our first meteor monitor/recorder. Will do a separate post on that.
If I call the observatory area anything, it'll be GOAT MANOR. Where anything risky and damaging can happen. Expect the unexpected, and nothing done conventionally. Well, not often anyway!
Yep, between all my other projects, the Vic Suburban Rail Loop will be COMPLETED before I finish this!
Anyway, a quick spurt of activity has resulted in the cage being leveled and secured via star pickets (small cut offs from old ones).
Tin cut, Vapor barrier insulation stuck with double sided tape (amazing stuff!)
Insulation stuck in, tin screwed on and pestering lamb removed
We have a few old cool room panels laying around (thank goodness for a massive yard for storage of free spare goods your amazing partner scrounged). I'll cut one to size for a roof, then it's pretty much done for now. Felt the temp difference inside as I was working yesterday, significantly cooler already, without a roof.
Might line the inside with some sort of thin material, a I fear the wool fibres from the insulation might cause havoc
GOAT1 is now operational, yay! Tell ya what, the amazing feeling of just turning a mount etc on and then slewing to targets, without having to set up everything and polar alignment....it can't be beat! Well it can, but this is a family safe forum eh 😂
Insulation works great, and the heavy cool room wall I'm using as a roof panel is perfect. An even through all the tin and insulation, I'm still getting good remote control ability from 40m away.
One day I'll put wheels on the roof. Yeah right, one day.
Polar alignment is so good and solid, I'm doing 1 min unguided subs at this small fov with the tiny qhy715c cam
...farm jobs, I can imagine 
Eagleview is not even a farm and there is still a lot to do...I need a tractor 
...and a Polaris...and...
They are rather timid luckily...still, wouldn't want to tread next to, or on, one!
to The GOAT Observatory
