I'm finished at last with fighting the law (the law won). I had to dismantle the observatory, pour a pad, and reassemble it. The whole process took almost two months with the weather, help, and time issues. But now the KDSO is approved by the MAN.
After it was reassembled, I added rollers for the roof, made the tarp covering integral with the roll-off, buried the electrical from the garage, and made a new cart for the 12" Dob and a field table for a computer, eyepieces, charts, munchies... Now, I just walk in, easily push open the roof, flip a switch, and I'm ready to go. It works great.
I was out for the first time on Friday (5-23-08), and saw M13, M5, and the ring nebula. This is the first time for globular clusters, and you know what they say about the first time. M13 was magnificent through the Dob. I viewed from 45x through 320x!!! The seeing was the best I've ever experienced in Michigan (A whopping 1.5 years!). The air was extremely steady and transparency was good. I could resolve extremly faint 12-13th mag stars, the dark y, and the streamers from off the central cluster. It was gorgeous! I'm heartened that this is one class of object I should be able to easily view on good evenings in the suburbs, along with many open clusters, in addition to the moon, planets, and a couple of galaxies (crossing my fingers on this last one! M104 is my next target...)
The observatory did what it was supposed to: keep out the ambient light and preserve my night vision, limit the wind, and allow me to keep accessories conveniently at hand. It was a pure joy to work in it and was worth the tremendous effort of building it--twice!!
The pics:
Peace