This is a recent photo of my 24" f8 RC telescope project, now installed in our home observatory, which I named -- Sagrada Observatory.  I designed and fabricated this telescope system, first starting the project about 15 years ago.  I have ground and polished large telescope mirrors and flats in the past, but the RC Hyperbolic mirrors are just too complex for me.  So I purchased the 24" RC Mirrors from Star Instruments.  Construction of all the telescope systems was accomplished in my home machine shop with CNC Machining, welding, etc.  The telescope was originally designed as a "Kit", allowing easy transport without a crane.  All parts and major assemblies are precision aligned and pinned together for easy disassembly and reassembly, which allows the entire scope system to be moved and reassembled by two people.  Fully assembled, the total weight of the OTA and Fork Mount is about 1,500 lbs. (about 680 Kg).

The Dome is a 14.5 ft. ASH Dome with split-shutters, which gives the flexibility of closing the Lower Shutter during windy conditions.  I am using a Technical Innovations DDW dome controller and software.   This entire observatory is automated for remote operation via the Internet, using CCD Commander for the automation software.  I use IP Power Distribution modules to power each of the system components, eg. drive, camera, etc. for remote control.   The telescope drive system is an TCS-4000 drive from Software Bisque, which is servo/encoder based, and functions with TheSkyX to accomplish telescope control -- behaving exactly like a Paramount ME --  except no Meridian Flips.

The main Pier is 24" in diameter and extends down into the ground, to a 10'x10'x10' concrete base, all isolated from the observatory structure.  The telescope as mounted is about 24 feet above ground level.  The OTA and Fork Mount are mainly fabricated/welded from tubular steel.  The RA and DEC movements are supported by heavy duty precision instrument bearings.  The RA and DEC axis are driven by the MKS-4000 encoder/servo motors.  The current imaging camera system is a CCD FLI-PL-09000, using an FLI Filterwheel and Astrodon GenII Filters.  The Guide Camera is a ZWO ASI-1600MM CMOS camera in an Off-Axis guider setup (MOAG).  I designed into the BackPlate an internal Instrument Rotator system to aid in finding guide stars, but I typically leave the North Angle set at 0 degrees, as the very sensitive ZWO CMOS guide camera always finds a suitable guide star. 

The OTA/Fork Mount are precision polar aligned and refined with a 450 pt. TPoint model for accurate centering of objects on the CCD Chip (pointing accuracy of 16 arcsecs).  RA Track Error is <0.6 arcsecs.  Auto-Guiding is accomplished with PHD-2 Predictive guiding enabled, which typically yields a total RMS error of <0.8 arcsecs.

Anyway...  That is the general setup...