Projects

Enhancements to the building and equipment of Welford Observatory

2011

Wall Monitor

The screen on the laptop I use for astronomy has broken (multi-coloured lines permanently on the screen) and I need to replace it with a monitor. I happened to have an old flat screen monitor lying around and rather than carry it in and out of the observatory each time I used it I thought I'd attach it to the wall. Here's how I did it :-)

I screwed two 2x2's into the wall at the height (+4mm) of the monitor - tested it to ensure it fit then used some of the skirting removed from the

roof (see below) to hold it in place. I left enough room so the monitor can be lifted out without undoing these panels.

I re-installed the shelf, painted the wall and installed the monitor. As I'm standing by the scope most of the time this should be at about theright height to view.

I got a chance to test the imaging set up and was able to watch a program on Yosemite while I worked :-) In the second picture I've got both the ccd cameras running and I'm able to control one from the laptop and the other from the monitor screens which turned out good.

Roof Rotation Improvement

1. I used a metal bar with a frictionless pad on it (x4) to hold the roof in place while it was rotated. It worked but with two large wooden disks rotating on each other it wasn't easy. I actually thought that was the bigger problem but it was really too late to install wheels for the roof to ride on.

2. It was suggested that the 4 pads didn't provide enough alignment for the roof and would let it dig in on the first push to get it rotating. What was needed was a continuous surface for the roof to spin on. I varnished some thin planks of wood and covered them in silicone to replace the pads. It was still just as difficult to get the roof moving - once it was going it was fine.

3. In giving up and resigning myself to the prospect of suspending the roof on wheels I thought I might as well put the perfect solution in place first for retaining the roof. This involved replacing "2" with wheels stolen from a skateboard (of course I waited for it to stop moving har har). Much to my relief I found that my original design of having the two disks ride against each other for spin was absolutely fine - it was in the end all down to the pads! Great news - now I can spin the roof just by leaning on it.

Hatch Redesign

The original hatch for the observatory was a one piece unit that had to be lifted off the front of the building. Although very weather proof it was becoming a pain in the back so I decided to re-design it. The best design I could achieve would be a clam shell operation so I went for that.

I started working on the top of the hatch first building the frame and covering it with 3mm plywood.

Here's the forward section - I think I may "over engineered" this a bit but I usually do and weight didn't matter as it would be hinged.

The best part about this project was the opportunity to use a "Flame Gun of Death" again (see Construction section). Unfortunately I couldn't use the "turbo" version this time and had to settle for a small hand held canister - boooo! Here I'm using it to fix torch felt to the two halves.

I took the units outside to see if they would fit - which is never a sure thing for me as I'm pretty useless at measuring stuff - thank the gods for MS Visio :-) Everything went together ok so I just had to create a weather seal between the two halves - things got a little hot while I was doing this and it all started on fire, but not too much.

I was really happy (and releaved!) to see how well it fit on the roof - there's a very tight weather seal without making the units bind on opening. The top part slides back and is held in place on internal T shaped runners while the front half opens out to the front. It's a lot easier than lifting the hatch off and I can also control the amount of local light pollution pouring in by limiting the aperture to the scope diameter - another huge plus.

Unfortunately as easy it was to open the front half on its hinges it was blocking about 10 degrees above the celestial equator when looking south (no houses there). I decided to lose the hinges and have a two stage sliding unit like the top. It's two stage so that I can drop it down completely out of the way when viewing The Great Nebula in Orion - which is the lowest I can see from my site.

Planetary Symbols

I was reading a book on the Apollo missions and those that took place in the run up to them when I noticed the patch the astronauts wore for the Mercury program. It includes the planetary symbol for Mercury which I'd not seen before. Searching for examples on the net I found a template including the full set. I thought they might look good in the observatory as I wasn't a big fan of the usual posters of deep sky objects, star and Moon maps. I was also bored (in between bike rides) and this gave me something to do on a Tuesday afternoon in September of 2010.

Neptune, Saturn and Uranus were first. I glued the paper to the wood so it would stay in place while I cut it - it was all quite funny as the blade kept popping out of the my ageing jigsaw nearly severing fingers etc.

As you can see Uranus turned out a bit dodgy and not perfectly round (I did get it better than pictured here!) but I got tired of sanding and the saw wasn't accurate enough to ensure I stayed perfectly within the lines. Next I had to peel/sand all the paper off and paint them - I found the sample pots at the local DIY shop were perfect. If you open the picture of them being painted you'll notice they seem to be floating above the table - I stuck pins in them to suspend them so I could paint both sides at once :-)

Since putting them up I've had comments from people accusing me of being a witch (particularly amusing as a I'm a raving agnostic from way back - but don't label me man :-) ) and an alchemist which was more appealing but equally mystifying until I noticed the preponderance of these symbols in all things witch/wizard/mad scientist like. Fact is I just like the way they look and it's cool that our planets have symbols I think.