I broke ground a few weeks ago for my backyard observatory. Started with the hole for the pier . 3'x3'x42" deep.....What a pain to dig by hand. 1800 lbs of concrete between the base of pier and the pier itself. If the rain holds off, I will be pouring the floor on sat morn.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P9052980a.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P9052979a.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P8132877a.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P8132874b.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P8132868a.jpg

Looks like your helpers had a lot of fun, too!

And a great location, nice views to the horizon ... keep us posted.

Congratulations!

Oh Yeah.... Lookin good.

Thanx for all the replies everyone!  My girls like to try and come out once in a while to view with me.....its a bit hard yet since they are so young and they go to bed pretty early. Hopefully someday they will want to stay up with me and observe.

I have a clear view to the northern horizon, most of the South and East also, but the Western horizon is limited. The drawbacks unfortunately are that the Southern horizon is  somewhat ruined by an auto auction house about 4 miles from my house that is lit up like a Christmas tree all year long( how many lights does one place need anyway??) The western sky is totally wiped out by Buffalo and suburbs.

The benefits though are that I can see(when its really clear) the Milky Way stretching from the north east all the way down until it fades away into the glow near theSouthern horizon. Not very good in the South but still just visible. You can see many glowing areas in the Milky Way as you follow it along and the rift is visible. The North and Eastern skies are pretty dark and the views at the zenith are spectaular for this area. My views of the North American neb. and Veil neb. last summer thru my 4.7"  short tube refractor and Ultrablock filter were amazing.(And not duplicated this year.....not much time to be out at nite....)

The rain held off thankfully, so I managed to get the slab poured. YAY!! I was hoping for a pic to put on here today, but it has been raining literally all day long so no chance yet. I will try for a shot tomorrow. I spent the evening going over some roofing ideas with my brother-in-law and we have come up with a unique idea that I think will work nicely for what I have in mind. All in all, this will certainly be the biggest and most interesting project I ever attempted.( hopefully not too overwhelming......its certainly becoming more complicated as I go...lol)

Mike S.

Here are a couple pics of the slab and pier. I know, I know, not exciting for most people but I thought i would post pics as I go along with this project. The next thing I am doing is putting in the underground cable for power.....300 feet(ugh!) ...not going to be  fun.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P9142985aa.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/P9142984aa.jpg

 Mike S

Thanx audax...it seems to be a bigger project than I originally thought but I think it will turn out good in the end. I took th eplans for a roll roof observatory and changed them quite a bit.....hopefully into something that will work well for considerably less cost.

Mike S.

Glad you guys like the updates and pics. I think I have a better way to block the light kaksnapper, but I have to wait and see if it works like I intend before I can make that judgement. I would try the trees but they have this tendency to keep growing and growing and...... At some point they might block areas I want to see

Mike S.

Hi Nighteagle1091! Glad ya like the pics and uddates. I managed to get the power line buried....that was a piece of work! I had my lumber delivered last week, and this weekend I was visiting my brother-in-law outside of Philly and he gave me a whole load of his old vinyl siding that he just had removed. So now I am pretty much ready to get sarted building this thing.

Unfortunately, it would have been the perfect weekend to build it as I was on vacation and the weather was perfect, but I had already purchased tickets to Nascar at Dover on Sunday.(which was a blast btw)with a friend and my bro-in-law. And I couldn't say no to free siding either while I was there.

I admit, I am not so good at posting on here either, although I have been a member for many years. I do not know the protocol with regards to replying to messages. Do I reply to each person(?) or do I just kind of reply once as a way of answering everyone? It seems to me to be a way of cluttering things up a bit by seperate replies, but maybe I should so I don't offend anyone? I have replied to the last 3 people separately but only 1 reply to a  bunch of the previous posters. If I should have posted to each person , then I offer my sincerest apologies for my ignorance(or maybe I am just overthinking this a bit much?)

Anyway, I have to wait on my friends to help me with the building of this  so I dont forsee getting to it until next weekend unfortunately. I would post a pic of the underground cable , but there would not be much to see there...lol

Just a quick update on my project!

I finally got the frame up last weekend so now hopefully I will get the walls up and the door on this weekend....I am running out of time before the snow flies to get this finished. Nothing ever seems to go as planned ...sigh...

Here are a couple pics showing the frame. The North wall is going to be a bit higher than originally intended. After consulting a couple people, we felt that it needed a bit higher pitch to guarantee snow runoff......don't want roof to collapse under weight of snow. The lowest wall will be the South wall which will also drop down for a full view of Southern sky. The East wall will block the pesky light from my neighbor's house across the street, while still giving me nearly full access to Eastern sky. Western sky doesn't really matter much as it is nearly totally washed out by skyglow form Buffalo and suburbs

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/observatoryframe1a.jpg

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff54/slick750/observatoryframe001a.jpg

Mike S.

man, am I jealous ....looking great. Nice work.

Jim

Thanx Jim! Glad you like  it! Although I am not sure if I am going to be able to put up the walls on Sunday .......a lot of wind and pretty chilly, but we shall see. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the wind dies down by the afternoon. If i can get the walls up this weekend , then I should be able to get the siding on next weekend if the weather holds. All I need are a couple more weeks.

Mike S.

      An amazing start--blows mine away!   I should have some pics up today---The Kepler (not so) Deep Sky Observatory is finished--

  (No first light yet...)

Looking forward to seeing  your finished product cyberpatzer!

Mike S.