Category Archives: Observatory

A couple more photos of the observatory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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