Upgrade my observatory

[Altocumulus]

Some good news for a change.

The replacement rail arrived this afternoon, and I've finally sorted the cancelled timber order - coming in two parts next week, but 50 quid more than the original price!

All I need now is some less cold weather so I can get the last bit of roofing in place and the epdm glued. It's held up the inner build badly....

[Altocumulus]

A bit of an update!

Weather still causing issues with it being too wet, or too cold.

The forecast is for high pressure to become dominant during the week (!?!?!). If so that's likely to bring cold conditions with temperatures still below threshold for glueing the epdm onto the smaller roof.
One problem with building on the fly and working within the sizes of materials (6*2s were 4.2metre long - so I worked on that length for the main side) is that original specs turn out to be wrong. As was the case with the edpm purchased for the warm room - it was a mite small. So a new piece has arrived as replacement.

In order to move forward more quickly I've decided to put the epdm in place (when it stops raining!) and use battens to 'lock' down the edges until such time as I can use the glue. If I can achieve that I can start to move inside and get that sorted.

At least there's been few opportunities in recent weeks for any imaging of any kind - so it's not been a huge issue - just frustrating.....

[helicon]

Good luck with the continued build Geoff and I hope the weather becomes a bit more cooperative.

[Altocumulus]

I'm way behind with keeping you to date with progress. Apologies.

A lots been done, and I have enough to get started. A few holes still to fill in, though.

A few updates on photos....

[Altocumulus]

View southwards

[Altocumulus]

Each mount has its own PC with a controlling PC in the 'warm' room connected to three monitors. Two can be seen in the photo above, the third 'monitor' is a Wacom tablet.

Finding an app that will allow me to keep viewing both mounts at the same time is proving interesting.

Windows Remote will work, but (so far) refuses to keep screen resolutions correct - the displays on the monitors lack the Taskbar for each of the mount PCs and refuses to keep the correct aspect ratio for the monitors.

NoMachine and AnyDesk work - free versions, but will only allow one session active at once.

Looks like I might have to connect an old laptop and run two single remote sessions, rather than keep trying to get one PC controlling two.

[Graeme1858]

That's come on really well Geoff.

Are you ready to go when you get some clear skies?

Graeme

[Altocumulus]

Thanks Graeme - Yes I am - Both mounts are roughly aligned using the Sun, albeit with a little drift evident.
I managed a short CaK yesterday morning.

[Graeme1858]

Thanks Graeme - Yes I am - Both mounts are roughly aligned using the Sun, albeit with a little drift evident.
I managed a short CaK yesterday morning.

Excellent!

I aligned my telescope mount orientation with the midday sun shadow when I poured the pier concrete too!

Looking forward to seeing your images.

Graeme

[Lady Fraktor]

That looks really good Geoff!
I hope you get a lot of use from it.