Building Meadowview Observatory
Here are some pictures of the construction of Meadowview Observatory. It's the 10'6"
model from Explora-Dome. Construction, although not exactly simple, went off without too many hitches. The site chosen was in an existing rose garden in our front yard. |
Here's the result after all the construction. The following pictures will show what transpired from the beginning. |
Here's what the rose
garden looked like, minus most of the roses. They were temporarily transplanted to keep them out of harm's way. There were replanted around the observatory after construction. |
The form for the
concrete base was laid
down. Not shown is the footing and the rebar. |
It took four yards of concrete to fill in the form. |
A worker in the pier foundation hole. |
It took 27 bags
of ready mix concrete to fill in the pier foundation.
The 3/4" J-bolts are sunk two feet down. They're not going anywhere soon! |
The bottom support
ring for the
observatory is secured to the concrete base. |
The basic structural supports went up next. That's one of the grandkids running around the base. |
The sidewalls went on next. |
The
"top" is now in place. |
It's finished! Well, then came a long process of automating the dome. |
The pier. I had this custom made in Temecula (where I live)
at a welding shop. The walls are 0.25" thick, and the base
and top plate are 0.75" thick. The door allows easy access to
the wires running down the center. I then had the pier
powder coated. It looks great! |
As of April 2013, I
replaced the original two scopes with a new Celestron Edge
HD14 scope. I use a Celestron
CGE
Pro mount which
handles the load well.
This picture also
shows my imaging camera, which currently is a ZWO
ASI6200MM with a filter wheel. The guide camera is out of sight. |