Observatory? - Forums

Topic starter

Mar 16, 2025

This past winter was colder than normal. As I get older I find myself not wanting to be outside. In addition, I find the winds have a major impact on exposure times. It seems like when the winds are over 15 or 20 mph, the skies are great. But, my telescope bounces around making 3 or 4 minute exposures impossible. So I think I wat to either build a roll or roof or buy dome.

What I am not sure of and looking for input is buy and keep both of my scopes and mounts or sell one to help pay for the observatory? What to do?

Roll off allows me to keep both scopes but is not as effective against wind. That is unless I build some kind of windshield.
Domes are really for a single scope.

It looks like the cost is about the same, under $10k complete.

Your opinion counts.

Brian Boyle

Mar 16, 2025 · Edited: Mar 16, 2025

If you can, designing and building your own observatory is one of the most fun, rewarding and beneficual things you can do for your hobby.

It’s expensive, but worth it.

My observatory cost me as much as all my telescope gear, but it allows me to image easily and sleep soundly in my own bed most clear nights.

The only thing I regret now (4 years on) is not building a bigger one with multiple piers.

So my advice would be to build the best you can, selling current scopes if needed.

CS

Brian

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Scott Badger

Mar 16, 2025 · Edited: Mar 16, 2025

For me, the wind protection and being 10 min from shut down to imaging was transformational. I built my own shed style for about $700, though instead of a roll off, the roof consists of four separate panels. Not a one button removal, but removing only the panels I need to for the target adds to the wind protection. I can also angle the remaining panels up for even better wind mitigation.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/wkHxQ6Bx3pxiV1nu6

The one downside to the panels is that they’d be too large to easily handle for an observatory big enough for more than one rig.

Cheers,
Scott

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Ken - Wolf Run Observatory

Topic starter

Mar 16, 2025

I like that set up @Scott Badger. What are the roof panels made of? I am further away form the mountain than you, thus I get very heavy winds at times.

Tony Gondola

Frequent contributor

Mar 16, 2025

Building one is a wonderful experience and it doesn't need to be horribly expensive, it's just a small shed after all. There are so many designs and approaches I'm sure you can find something that checks all the boxes for you. Have you considered selling both mounts and getting a single mount that can handle all the OTAs at once? It would be a great convenience and you can keep the building small.

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Scott Badger

Mar 16, 2025 · Edited: Mar 16, 2025

Ken - Wolf Run Observatory:
I like that set up @Scott Badger. What are the roof panels made of? I am further away form the mountain than you, thus I get very heavy winds at times.

The panels are 1/4" plywood and secured from the inside with removal rafters. Despite overlapping the seams between the panels with 4" strips, which also makes them more rigid, it's got a couple leaks which I could probably chase down, but a 12'x16' plastic tarp and a few bungie cords is easy enough and completely water tight (https://photos.app.goo.gl/rE7nD1879JW1XAhf6). I don't know if corrugated or honeycomb plastic panels would work, but would be a lot lighter if they do.

I'm about 5 miles directly down wind of the mountain (Mount Washington) in the upper right corner. Up until recently, it held the highest recorded wind speed at 231 mph and it's still the highest recorded wind speed at a staffed weather station. On the summit, winds frequently top 100 mph and just a couple weeks ago they recorded 161 mph. Not sure what the wind was at my house that night, but forecasts were 40 - 60 with occasional gusts over 80..... So yeah, got some wind too!

I know there are some that leave their whole rig out under a Telegizmos cover, but while I was comfortable doing that with my mount, I wasn't so sure about the scope too.

Cheers,
Scott

Scott Badger

Mar 16, 2025

Another 'feature' is that the sides are hinged a couple feet down so that most of the time they extend higher than the scope for wind protection, but if I really need to image below 40 deg, I can fold one side down. https://photos.app.goo.gl/rncy83Zu2hupksZ56

Cheers,
Scott

churmey

Mar 16, 2025

I just completed my project….total investment < $1500.00. For two piers, you could extend this to 16’ long, put your piers on each end and roll the sheds to the middle. The positive to this design is, it’s easy to construct, gives a nice level floor to work on when opened, provides 3 sides of wind deterrence when opened (luckily for me, my house provides blockage on my open end), easy to handle/role back / lock down into positions.

https://www.astrobin.com/lnf3fx/

Whatever you eventually end up doing…..you’ll enjoy doing it and likely will not regret it

Good luck and look forward to seeing what you end up doing.

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Dave Erickson

Mar 16, 2025 · Edited: Mar 19, 2025

Design notes and considerations for a 10' remote control dome and telescope, project:

10ftDome and Telescope Project.pdf

Control system considerations link:

CDK17 Remote Control System.pdf

Gallery link:

https://app.astrobin.com/u/hbastro?i=xzpojv#gallery

Pedro Goles

Mar 18, 2025

Ken
I build myself my observatory, it's an inclined roll off, as others said that was a happy experience working only at weekends for about a year.
It was not expensive (but until today with no-remote capabilities, unnecessary for me living at the place).
The design allows cut the wind and this is not a problem for me. You can see some pictures at my old website: www.astrofremen.cl under the title "observatory".
If the wind is one of your issues try not to buy a "clamshell" dome, that design does not protect from the wind. The good thing about to build yourself is the option of build a "control room" attached to the machines room, and you could be warm and happy inside.
Good luck,
Pedro Goles

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ScottF

Frequent contributor

Mar 18, 2025

Keeping your wall height as high as possible will help a lot with wind with a ROR. I'd go with a ROR design and make it big enough to have a warm room. I have a small room in my observatory with a heater, making imaging in the winter enjoyable. I roll the roof off, sit in the warm room until I get the imaging plan setup, and then return to the house. No more wearing snow pants and heavy coats! lol

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Leonardo Ruiz

Mar 18, 2025

I have no doubt that an observatory is a radical change in this hobby, as you can photograph almost daily, depending solely on the weather, and do integrations from 30 to 100 hours. Going out into the mountains or even your garden is exhausting and nothing compares to the comfort of an office where you can monitor everything, even remotely. In my case, the wind doesn't affect me because I built a very high observatory, with 3 m high walls, which causes me to lose about 30° from the horizon, which is precisely the area unusable due to light pollution.
Another option is to pay for a hosting service, like Starfront, for $190/month, and you don't have to build your own observatory. In my case, since my sky is Bortle 9, hosting on Bortle 1 was a great solution. Had I known, I wouldn't have built an observatory at home and would have saved a lot of time and money. But if you have good sky quality and space in your home, your own observatory is a great solution and doesn't have to be so expensive.

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Josh Jones

Mar 18, 2025

I'm in the process of also building my new observatory building right now. It's a simple 10x20. I had a 10x10 and single dome structure and love it. I wouldn't maybe trust it 1000 miles away, but being only 50 feet from my house, when something happens I can go out and bump it and get things moving and working again if needed.

I will say having a dome over a roll off is very nice. I keep the wind off all night even when it's 15mph or so... I shut them after that. So now I grabbed another used dome and setting up identical structures. Had to reprogram as their automation systems were talking to each other but once I got that figured out, they are independent and working good. Here is a the design I'm working on, pouring concrete this week on it.

If I had gone roll off, this would have rolled off either 10' in one direction or 20' in another, taking up a lot of space. This makes a tighter system controllable and also better wind guard. The research I have found varies wildly in just about every aspect, so the fun of it is really just doing what you envision and making it reality and work.

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Alex Nicholas

Mar 19, 2025

Depending on how 'automated' you want the whole thing to be, there is no reason an observatory has to be an expensive thing…

And in your situation, it sounds like you don't need an observatory that is automated entirely, or even that has a great deal of space, you're looking to house 1 or 2 telescopes in a shed with a removable roof, and you're wanting to set up a good wifi connection between that shed and your house so you don't have to be outside to image… for 10k, I would have brick walls on my observatory if that was my only requirements…..

It could honestly be a 2.5 x 3m aluminium shed, design some rails and rollers for the slide off roof and a retention method so the roof can't open or close itself under wind power, the concrete slab, You don't "NEEED" a pier for either scope, you don't have one now…. so what difference does it make other than being impossible to accidentally bump your polar alignment, but if you don't bump it now, what makes you think you would inside the shed?… Run power and a CAT6 cable through some conduit under ground (or better, a pair of Lithium batteries and a solar panel or two on the roof..)

The CAT6 plugs into your router inside your home, and into a wireless access point inside the shed - boom - you have a solid connection to devices inside the observatory, so you don't need to be outside all night.

From then on, you walk outside, roll open and retain the roof, power up the scope/scopes, and go inside… In the morning… walk outside, power everything down, unhook and roll the roof closed, pin it in place so it can't open.

I'd be really surprised if that cost you more than a few thousand… If you're handy, you could do majority of it yourself…

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