Hi Dave, glad to see you are planning for the second pier and observatory. Hopefully it cools down soon so you can work on it without this hot weather. Cs
Yup, and I don't want to begin building before I get that figured out and understand the interaction between the scopes and the impact of the wall height. Ideally, I would have the observatory oriented east to west, but that would significantly impact the backyard, and so I have to orient it north to south, so, the walls will have more impact on what I can see for how long based on that orientation.
Better to have slightly larger. When servicing you scopes and you have to remove them from the mounts some extra space might come in handy moving the OTAs around. Adding a foot here or there can't cost that much more but what do I know, I never built anything. Hopefully, you won't run into any beauraucratic hurdles with city codes etc. We spend winters in Arizona but have to leave by end of April when it starts getting over 95F. I don't know how people live there through the summers. But home is home. I lived 25 years in DFW when working. I got used to the heat and humidity. I notice you have a Losmandy mount. You state it's a Celestron branded model. I'm looking at the GM8 or GM811 for my C8 SCT with OAG.. Is Losmandy worth considering? I'm looking at good guiding performance. Thanks
In Bortle 8 skies here in Phoenix, it does 0.5 RMS typically with my 10" Newt, not sure if that is good enough for what you are looking for? But it works for me 🙂
Good video, just one question, you are checking your wall height, but won’t your wall height measurement start from the top of the raised deck, and not from the stones on the ground, so will actually be higher than 72” from the actual ground level…?
That is correct. But I am putting a deck on, so the walls will cover the deck and end about an inch off the ground, so will need to account for that. I just took rough measurements, and will make adjustments when I get to building the walls.
I haven't built my observatory yet. Does the alignment of the two piers in relation to each other matter? Ie, is it better to have them both on a north/south line or an east/west line?
Hi Dave, glad to see you are planning for the second pier and observatory. Hopefully it cools down soon so you can work on it without this hot weather. Cs
VERY NICE!!
Always tricky working out the wall heights so they don't block too much sky but still allow the scope to miss hitting the roof.
Yup, and I don't want to begin building before I get that figured out and understand the interaction between the scopes and the impact of the wall height. Ideally, I would have the observatory oriented east to west, but that would significantly impact the backyard, and so I have to orient it north to south, so, the walls will have more impact on what I can see for how long based on that orientation.
Better to have slightly larger. When servicing you scopes and you have to remove them from the mounts some extra space might come in handy moving the OTAs around. Adding a foot here or there can't cost that much more but what do I know, I never built anything. Hopefully, you won't run into any beauraucratic hurdles with city codes etc. We spend winters in Arizona but have to leave by end of April when it starts getting over 95F. I don't know how people live there through the summers. But home is home. I lived 25 years in DFW when working. I got used to the heat and humidity.
I notice you have a Losmandy mount. You state it's a Celestron branded model. I'm looking at the GM8 or GM811 for my C8 SCT with OAG.. Is Losmandy worth considering? I'm looking at good guiding performance. Thanks
In Bortle 8 skies here in Phoenix, it does 0.5 RMS typically with my 10" Newt, not sure if that is good enough for what you are looking for? But it works for me 🙂
Good video, just one question, you are checking your wall height, but won’t your wall height measurement start from the top of the raised deck, and not from the stones on the ground, so will actually be higher than 72” from the actual ground level…?
That is correct. But I am putting a deck on, so the walls will cover the deck and end about an inch off the ground, so will need to account for that. I just took rough measurements, and will make adjustments when I get to building the walls.
That permanent pier seems awfully short?
I haven't built my observatory yet. Does the alignment of the two piers in relation to each other matter? Ie, is it better to have them both on a north/south line or an east/west line?
Progress.
Slowly, can't do much here in the daytime in Phoenix, too hot! Today is supposed to get to 115 degrees.
What’s the name of your pier adaptor for the e6qr? Thanks.
It came from Starazona several years ago. It is aluminum and it works great.