Category Archives: Observatory

A couple more photos of the observatory

Posted on January 30, 2020 by james

I found these the other day, so I thought I’d just add them out of interest… First, the remote control for the telescope room LEDs. I keep meaning to 3d print a little holder for this to fix to the … Continue reading →

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The observatory at work

Posted on November 9, 2019 by james

Work on the observatory has slowed somewhat as I need to catch up on other domestic jobs, but from the images I’ve already posted it’s obviously being used. I’m not sure I have the arrangement of mounts and telescopes that … Continue reading →

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Telescope Polar Alignment, Part Two

Posted on August 20, 2019 by james

The computery side of my observatory is going to be Linux-based, as far as possible, so I’ve had it in the back of my head that I’d be running something like Kstars and Ekos to control the mount and other … Continue reading →

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Telescope mount polar alignment

Posted on August 20, 2019 by james

The observatory having reached a point where it’s usable, the first job was polar alignment of the RA axis of the mounts. When setting up on a nightly basis I’ve always just tried to get Polaris in roughly the right … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #80

Posted on August 10, 2019 by james

I didn’t have a lot of time this evening, but took a monitor, keyboard and mouse down to the warm room, connected them and one of the pier computers up to the KVM switch and powered everything on. All the … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #79

Posted on August 10, 2019 by james

I’m pleased to be able to relate that all the mains wiring in the observatory is now complete and it is connected up to the existing supply from the house. I no longer have extension leads and trailing sockets all … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #78

Posted on August 2, 2019 by james

After a month away from construction because of holidays and other stuff going on, this weekend I spent some time working on the power for the piers. Photos to follow, but each pier now has an IP66-rated cabinet attached (which … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #77

Posted on June 25, 2019 by james

I took a detour on the way home from swimming to pick up some trunking and a few other electrical bits from Screwfix. Despite the twenty minute plus journey I was still sweating profusely after swimming which was a bit … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #76

Posted on June 25, 2019 by james

Whilst I was fossicking around in the workshop this week I came across about 15m of armoured cable that looked entirely suitable for running the power from the beer shack (which will have power connected from the house) to the … Continue reading →

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Building an observatory. Construction #75

Posted on June 18, 2019 by james

Another quiet week, but I did at least dodge the rain and spend some time fitting a lock to the outside door on Saturday. I now need to fit handles and, as the only spindle I had was clearly going … Continue reading →

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