Terry's Observatory Site

This website shows the construction of my Observatory.  It took me a few weeks of design  and a few weekends of construction and fitting out.  The number of wobbly shelves in our house will testify to the fact that I'm no DIY expert so I think, quite seriously, that if I can do it then anyone can! The Observatory is a simple roll-off roof shed, designed to house a 12" LX200 classic.  The view on the right shows the complete observatory, the LX200 and the South Flap down (more of this later).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good telescope, must be in want of an observatory.  Having got my 12" LX200 in 2001, it was clear that setting it up and, especially, taking it down again in the freezing cold would cramp my observing style considerably.  So, like most observers, I quickly started thinking about a nice home for the scope (and me!). I did a fair amount of reading up, mainly from the excellent Amateur Observatories page , and finally decided on a roll-off roof style.  As a complete DIY klutz this looked like the easiest observatory to construct with the minimum budget.  Conveniently, I have a reasonably dark sky with only one neighbour to the South East.  However, I could block out any lights from there with one of our sheds and block the lights from our house with the main stable block.  This means that I have virtually no view to the West and a bit of an obstruction to the South East.  However, the vital Southern horizon is clear down to an altitude of about 5 degrees.

I set myself a few rules:    The observatory had to be easy to take down again (so no concrete footings, etc.)     All the materials had to be transportable in my car - even the 10 foot rails!     It had to look like a shed and blend in with the rest of the buildings So, with a fairly detailed plan and no real idea of what I was letting myself in for, I set out on this journey of discovery.