The Observatory

 
Home
The Observatory
Webcam mods
Photo Gallery
Mirrors
Favorites

 

I thought I'd build a domed observatory

You can't be a serious amateur if you haven't got a place to observe from and I was getting frustrated having to spend hours setting up and putting away equipment. Especially when it promoted all sorts of tracking errors.

So I thought I'd build an observatory. There are many sorts that are suitable, so I picked the most difficult to get right.

At the time of writing it isn't finished, so I might not have got it right at all...

Plywood frame

covered in hardboard segments

wrapped in glass cloth

two pack epoxied

trimmed and painted

steel ring fitted to base

wheels from cheap roller blades

lids on, ready to install on shed roof.

Lid on and sealed

First light at last.

I had assumed that the dome would be the hard bit, and was very surprised to find that I was wrong. The dome is to sit on the roof of a standard 8 X 10 garden shed, and the shed is to sit in the corner of my garden which has a 6 foot high wall all around it.

Unfortunately there was a strange angle to the corner (about 70 degrees) and the point of the corner was truncated with a 5 foot wall.

I decided that the obvious (?) way to fill the gaps was to turn the shed into a five sided building closely following the contours of the wall and remodelling the apex roof into a single slanting plane. Well it looked easy on paper.

Tips for the beginner...

marine ply is not as waterproof as its name suggests.

sheds that are bought in garden centres are not designed to be re-engineered.

There is no substitute for several coats of paint, applied when dry.

I won't go into the traumas suffered to get where I am, suffice it to say that if I ever do another one it will be a roll off roof design, or I may save up and buy one pre-made!

UPDATE:- As can be seen from the gallery above, the dome is up now and the observatory is in use. I have learned much from this project, mostly about how little you need to know about construction techniques in order to produce something that is perfectly useable.