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 at the same place
that powder coats Chronos' mounts. |
Although I change
setups from time to
time, this is
one option: a C14 and a TMB 105LW mounted in
tandem. I use a Celestron CGE Pro mount which handles the load well. |
