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Ad Mare Observatory, Cesar Briceño

Ad Mare Observatory

Ad Mare Observatory, Cesar Briceño

Ad Mare Observatory

Description

This is my current setup at my personal observatory in La Serena, Chile.
It is an IOptron 10inch R-C telescope riding on an Software Bisque MyT mount. It is equipped with a Moonlite 2.5inch focuser, and I have a ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro camera with 7 position 2inch ZWO EFW, and a ZWO large OAG, with a Lodestar X2 guide camera.   The 2 x 2m wood shed has a roll-off roof motorized with a garage door motor.

This was my covid19 pandemic project. I already had the telescope and MyT mount, but it was getting tedious to setup and  dismantle every night, specially those nights when you setup everything and then it clouded up 30min later!
So I got myself  this nice sheds with a company in Santiago that makes pre-fabricated garden wooden sheds, in various sizes and models. They come disassembled, and are easy to put together. I  just modified the roof, adding a frame to make it roll-off ready. I added the beams for the tracks, two 6 inch wide, 3m long round logs as support posts, and bought  2 x 6m long aluminum L beams to use as tracks. This makes these tracks rust-free, specially since we are not far from the ocean. I cut the side walls 20cm to make them bit lower.  I had a metal pier built in a local shop. It's bolted to a concrete foundation block. The shed itself just rests on concrete 20x40cm blocks placed on the ground. I placed a plastic mat on the ground underneath the observatory, and then covered it in gravel.  With the concrete blocks, the shed has a good 15cm clearance for good air circulation. I used wire mesh of the type used in chicken farms to cover the opening below the shed, so that no critters, in particular rabbits, will make a home below the observatory.

I am very happy with the results. My observatory now allows me to open at a moment's notice, and make the most of every clear sky conditions.  If it gets cloudy, I simply close down.  I run everything from inside the house.  I ran an ethernet cable all the way from our studio to the observatory, in addition to electric power.

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Ad Mare Observatory, Cesar Briceño

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