22.01.20202 Prom in very poor seeing.

[Rusted]

I hardly dare to share my "daubs" in these illustrious surroundings, but I managed to capture the tall prom today.
This was despite a very low altitude sun at 55N [below 15°] fast moving, low cloud and heavy thermal shaking all day.

6" f/8, 90mm internal D-ERF, Baader 35nm, 1.125GPC, motorized PST etalon, ASI174.
All mounted on my massive, home made, Goto GEM in my home made 10' two storey dome with 14' high pier.
SharpCap, AS!2 and PhotoFiltre7. 50 of 1000 frames, 800x600, 319fps, 1.4ms exposure [from memory.]

[ffellah]

A very nice prom image, rusted. I like the set up too !

Franco

[Rusted]

Thank you Franco.

[JochenM]

You shouldn’t worry about sharing your images. That one looks very good.

Also, you built your observatory dome yourself? That’s awesome!

[MapleRidge]

That's a nice pic of the prom, and always nice to see everyone's setup

I'd like to see more of your home brew dome too

Brian

[marktownley]

Great prom shot! Love to see more pictures of the setup / dome etc.

[Montana]

I think it is a super shot of the prom, so much detail in such a faint one

Alexandra

[eroel]

Hi:
Nice image and super setup.
Tell us about it.
Eric.

[Rusted]

Many thanks to all who responded so positively.
I thought it was a poor image even by my own standards.

I discovered H-alpha solar only recently thanks to some familiar experts on SGL.
Only to find that I couldn't often see the sun from the yard due to local trees and hedges.
So I built a two storey observatory to allow me to see in a southern arc from NE to SW.

P1280456 rsz dims 600.jpg (171.34 KiB) Viewed 5057 times

I always work alone but had lots of advice from professional builders on CN.
The big mounting was build in 2017 to my own ideas.
It uses compression forces from multiple screwed rods [studs] in all planes.
These are all carefully arranged to support the plates of the bearing boxes and each other.
The weight is prodigious but it was always meant to be permanently mounted on a solid pier.
It has AWR Goto and ASCOM planetarium support.

P1350995 rsz 600.JPG (111.11 KiB) Viewed 5057 times

The pier had to be nearly 14' high to place the mounting slightly above base ring height.
So I fashioned it out of a pyramid built from 4x4 timbers and clad with 3/4" ply.
The pier is mounted on adjustable, independent, concrete footings.
It stands isolated form the observatory building by spacing around the floor of the dome on the first floor.

The obs. building is formed as an octagon of vertical 4x4s.
Spaced by a series of mitred timbers of various sizes.
It is clad in decoratively grooved 1/2" plywood functioning as a stressed skin.

The veranda was an important addition for safe maintenance of the dome exterior.
It is fenced with a propriety weld mesh fencing system and is very safe.
All the flooring is larch and another geometric puzzle to fit.

The dome is mounted on eight 7" industrial rollers to avoid friction.
Roller skate wheels for steering and heavy alloy disks for constant dome retention in storms.
The dome is driven by a hand cranked, counterbalanced, 4" friction wheel near my desk.
Dome rotation is effortless and always within easy reach of the computer monitor and keyboard.

P1370284 rsz 600.JPG (90.6 KiB) Viewed 5057 times

The dome was a nightmare of trapezoid panels. The timber structure required compound joints.
It is clad in birch plywood but still not perfectly sealed despite great expense for many marine sealing cartridges.
The shutters are similarly clad and ride on heavy duty drawer slides.

The whole building was put together working entirely alone in a record heatwave in 2018.
Though I had the help of my diminutive wife to move 25 tons of self-compacting gravel.
It had to be ferried 30 yards to make up the sunken ground level.
We were both 70 at the time and it was all done in three days with two wheelbarrows and shovels.

[Montana]

Wow!!!

[JochenM]

Thanks for sharing that.

Impressive is the only word I can think of right now. Even more so since you essentially did it all on your own.

[ffellah]

I am VERY impressed ! You did a fantastic job

Franco

[Martin_S]

Wow that is a fantastic feat of engineering, well done.

Martin

[Rusted]

Thank you, all, for your kind words.

The dome is now lined with black, weed suppressing, ladscaping material, spaced off the panels.
Matt black paint didn't do well and develops white mould in our cool, damp climate.

P1400669 rsz.JPG (84.99 KiB) Viewed 5039 times

I have an overhead pulley system to help me lift heavy OTA's and mounting parts.
The naked light bulbs are ugly but provide enough light for working on the system with the shutters closed.
I also have a swan neck LED desk lamp.

A rather nice, 25" AOC HD monitor helps me focus and tune while my fast, SSD laptop is safely closed.
The screen is fixed to the massive pier, facing north over my desk.
I put an insulating waterproof cover over it when not in use.

P1360328 rsz 600 upright bright.JPG (120.39 KiB) Viewed 5039 times

The chain driven, dome friction drive is visible on the north wall.
I still need to trim the spare top crank to make it tidy.
It uses a 5kg weight on the far end of a length of pivoted 2x4 to provide the upward pressure.
This avoids having all the problems of a fixed drive roller.
Which cannot maintain contact with the underside of an uneven, dome, base ring.

I now spend most of my waking hours in there even when the sun isn't shining.
Or working on new telescopes. So I believe I am getting excellent value for money, when spread over time.

P1320325 rsz 500.JPG (128.65 KiB) Viewed 5039 times

[MAURITS]

Nice prom and a great project.

[eroel]

Hi:
Really enjoyed your comments, photos and blog, I felt young again to see those homemade refractors, self designed and made mounts, the way we made our observatories and the way we setup our scopes.
Reminded me when I made a fiberglass dome for my observatory, when I used to make my optics and design and made my mounts, learned to use a lathe and a mill, to weld with oxyacetylene and electric, we ATM´s used to be multifacetic, because communications were not nearly as fast as today. We used to get in touch by mail and sometimes took weeks or months to get a response, books and magazines were our motivation.
So thanks for sharing all that again with your post.
Eric.

[MapleRidge]

Thanks for posting the pics of the scope and dome, both completed and under construction!!!

Great work

Brian

[hopskipson]

Very nice capture!

And really nice observatory!

[Rusted]

Many thanks again for all your positive comments and to Eric in particular.

I have been an isolated ATM for nearly 60 years. Always on a shoestring. Buying secondhand accessories by post.
Information sources were usually library books. Or magazines to be read only at the library.
Far too many man hours spent endlessly searching scrap yards for the potentially useful.

I've made mirrors, flats, spectroscopes, prisms and several achromats up to 5".
My present, big mounting is mostly scrap metal.Though the drives were commercial.

I reasoned that building an observatory had better happen soon before it was physically beyond me.
It had to be tall just to see over the hedges.

Going solar and imaging was the big breakthrough I badly needed.
Now I was at home all day in my observatory. Or tinkering in my home-built workshop.
Which suited my wife far better than being a constant, cycling widow.

More importantly, this made the outlay far more acceptable. It was getting used every single day.
There were so many visible and practical benefits to just being around all the time.
Instead of my building another white elephant for only occasional, night time viewing.

The forums and websites have become my sources and information exchange with fellow enthusiasts.
The ability to share images online has improved enormously.
With parallel threading breaking Yahoo's serial monopolies, endless bullying and dreadful, image storage system.

I can now capture and process the "live" sun and share it with the entire world in under five minutes.
And do! They say: "Practice makes perfect." But I readily accept I will never match the real experts.
I can live with that despite being a "theoretical perfectionist."

It is all a far cry from the young boy building aerial telescopes with spectacle lenses to hang on the washing line post.
Or pouring over the secondhand, newsprint adverts for things I could never and would never, afford.
I was 50 before I met another "mirror maker" when I sold all my old blanks and abrasives. We talked and talked!
In fact I have hardly stopped talking ever since. Mostly, to myself, on my blogs. Thank goodness!

These last images show how one "elderly person," safely lifted several hundred pounds of GEM "upstairs" and onto my very tall pier.
A dirt cheap, Chinese, chain hoist and opposed ladders "guyed" with ratchet straps. The hoist literally fell to pieces and I had to rebuild it!

P1300670 rsz 600.JPG (195.6 KiB) Viewed 5000 times

P1300945 rsz crop.JPG (313.02 KiB) Viewed 5000 times

[robert]

Brilliant story thanks for posting.

I am also a retired astro fiddling person with a shed and a concrete block pier and C6 Celestron PST mod, (but not nearly as creative as you, no home made scopes, mounts, observatories etc!). I sort of started out (second time round into astronomy) with solar and webcam modifying and have wandered into night time with eyepieces and then EAA with video stacking with a collection of second-hand scopes to try various things.

I am now going to read your blog hopefully from end to end!

Best for 2020
Robert

[rsfoto]

Hi Rusted,

Now that I saw your images I remember you from CN and I was reading the full story of the building of your observatory ...

If I remember correctly you are in Holland ?

Great Job you have done there ...

[Rusted]

Hi Robert,

Good fun, isn't it?

As Eric said earlier, ATM is a multi-skilled "Jack of all trades" sort of pastime.
Most would probably add: "Master of none!"

Good luck if you think any of my blog worth is reading.
I'd just look at the pictures and you'll see what I did.

I think aloud, in text, on the blog page. Rather than waste irreplaceable [usually scrap] materials.
The act of scribbling my thoughts down allows me to access my design skills without making sawdust or swarf.
Somehow I can see most of the potential hurdles and far fewer advantages.

Decades ago I would sketch and measure and make endless scale drawings. [Badly!]
Now I just think hard about something, talk it to death in text and then go ahead with the materials available.

[Rusted]

Hi Rainer,

Thanks. I'm actually English but living in exile in rural Denmark.

I believe I was close to having the longest thread on CN.
Until I was banned for mentioning solar telescope mods. [Twice!]
I think they were glad to see the back of me!
I'll try not to outstay my welcome here.

I had never built a project quite on this scale before. Just the shed next door to it.
So I was very grateful for the technical support of the building experts on CN.
It's a shame I couldn't thank them all properly.

When I look across to the observatory from my "computer window" I can still hardly believe it is standing there.
Anyone contemplating an observatory should go ahead provided they realise the enormous stamina required.
It takes far too long and costs several times even the most wildly and foolishly optimistic budget.
It also needs far more [power] tools and skills than you presently own!

I really don't think I could have completed it successfully if I hadn't posted about it on the CN forum.
The pressure not to disappoint one's patient advisers and "online public" was vital to my finishing it.
Though it is never really finished. When the sky is overcast another "brilliant" idea always pops into my head.
When I cross the yard with my laptop in its case, to do some more imaging, my wife says, "I'm off to work."

[rsfoto]

Hi Rainer,

Thanks. I'm actually English but living in exile in rural Denmark.

I believe I was close to having the longest thread on CN.
Until I was banned for mentioning solar telescope mods. [Twice!]
I think they were glad to see the back of me!
I'll try not to outstay my welcome here.

I had never built a project quite on this scale before. Just the shed next door to it.
So I was very grateful for the technical support of the building experts on CN.
It's a shame I couldn't thank them all properly.

When I look across to the observatory from my "computer window" I can still hardly believe it is standing there.
Anyone contemplating an observatory should go ahead provided they realise the enormous stamina required.
It takes far too long and costs several times even the most wildly and foolishly optimistic budget.
It also needs far more [power] tools and skills than you presently own!

I really don't think I could have completed it successfully if I hadn't posted about it on the CN forum.
The pressure not to disappoint one's patient advisers and "online public" was vital to my finishing it.
Though it is never really finished. When the sky is overcast another "brilliant" idea always pops into my head.
When I cross the yard with my laptop in its case, to do some more imaging, my wife says, "I'm off to work."

Hi Rusted,

Well I was also banned from CN because of just saying that I would not recommend a Losmandy G11 mount after having owned two for more then 15 years



If this is OT please delete it ... but this is real life

Rainer

[Rusted]

Hi Rusted,

Well I was also banned from CN because of just saying that I would not recommend a Losmandy G11 mount after having owned two for more then 15 years



If this is OT please delete it ... but this is real life

Rainer

Hi Rainer,

Tut-tut!

I accused them of blocking vital information on DIY solar mods to protect the profit margins of their sponsors.

That went down well!

[marktownley]

Lovely thread Rusted! No danger of being banned here for speaking your mind

[Rusted]

Lovely thread Rusted! No danger of being banned here for speaking your mind

Thank you Mark, but you really shouldn't encourage me!

[krakatoa1883]

Fine prom image and beautiful observatory indeed! Congrats!

[Rusted]

Fine prom image and beautiful observatory indeed! Congrats!

Thank you very much Raf,

If I could ever compare my images to your fabulous results I would be deleriously happy!

I have just been admiring your superb website and your wonderful images.

[salvo lauricella]

Wonderful work! It is a dream!

[Rusted]

Wonderful work! It is a dream!

Thank you Salvo.

Now I must produce some images worthy of the investment in time and materials.

I am at 55N. Which means the sun is very low at 12-15° maximum altitude in winter and there is a lot of atmosphere in the way.