1/7/2024 0 Comments Backyard observatoryI marked where the legs would be and cut holes in the floor. A subfloor seemed a good solution to the uneven rough ground, but I knew the tripod would bounce like a tractor as I moved around the floor. My current backyard is good old Arizona dirt with some large gravel tossed in, and little critters that scurry around in the dark like scorpions abound. That didn’t seem too difficult, I simply needed to fabricate a solid structure to attach the shed to that could simply slide off the telescope when it was in use. The solution would be to have the whole structure move off the telescope. The only problem I could see was that they were designed to be anchored to the ground. When I came across a wide selection of steel framed plastic sheet sheds that were temporary, cheap, and easy to assemble. I was looking at plastic garden sheds I hadn’t totally given up on that idea. One afternoon I was engaged in one of my favorite pastimes, surfing. I considered downsizing but decided that if I couldn’t keep my current setup it might be time to find another hobby. Besides, it took forever to get everything set up to image to the extent that I didn’t feel like imaging. I tried for a couple of months hauling my stuff to the backyard but I was afraid that the Tylenol would fry my liver. There were manufacturers of wooden sheds that would modify a roof for me very expensive, and even more permanent looking. Who in the world makes a portable or temporary structure large enough to provide security for a 10” f/4 newtonian riding on a Celestron CGX mount? I considered a plastic yard shed expensive, major engineering for a removable roof, and an HOA that didn’t allow anything so “permanent”. I would keep my computer, cameras, and accessories in my den when not in use, and the mount and telescope could stay, semi-permanently situated outside. My only solution was a temporary structure that would allow me to leave my rig outside, at least the major heavy part.īack in my days as a Quality/Reliability Engineer, we had a motto by which we lived “Good, cheap, easy… pick any two”. Building a permanent structure was not feasible because I was in a leased home. The CGX being easily portable were not applicable to a 70’s aged former motorcycle racer whose bones barely meshed correctly. While being spoiled by the ability to image whenever desired was was painful to lose, carrying everything I needed to the backyard was painful too. At best, I was limited to a small scope that would not overload an AVX sized mount that I could hump out to the backyard as needed. I had reached a point in life (age) that restricted me to a system that I could carry outside each time I wanted to have a night of astrophotography. From my backyard I would have unrestricted views of the skies from north to south of the eastern skies. We leased a new home as close to the eastern edge of town (Tucson) as possible. A hideaway dedicated to my obsession with astrophotography simply was no longer possible. Everything works out fine on the medical front, but moving back out of town is simply not possible. A family emergency that requires a move back into town to be closer to doctors and a hospital. A 10’x12’ Roll-Off roof dedicated observatory with two permanent piers strong enough to carry the weight of a car, on five acres of Arizona desert more than 40 miles from the first city light. Only five years ago I had what many of us dream of.
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