Building the Base
After some dreadful months of bad weather and limited time actually imaging, it dawned on me to try and build my own observatory.
So, after copious hours trawling through the web watching youtube videos for inspiration I figured why not try and build my own Roll-off-Roof observatory. (Thanks goes out to Glenn from AstroBloke and Simon of Simon’s Astro to name a few that gave me the confidence to tackle it).
So with no real plan or any building experience at all, I thought hey whats the worst that can happen? I sketched out some rough dimensions on paper and ordered some timber (completely underestimating how much I’d need of course).
Upon arrival of the timber I started by building a timber box to frame the base area, I staked it out around the pier that I’d already installed, then dug out ditches to house conduit for running cables to the observatory and also to the pier.
I levelled off the ground, covered it with two layers of weed-proof membrane and then filled it with several inches of cotswold stone.
Next I built a solid 2x2m frame for the base and staked it into to the gravel base using large galvanised steel fence post spikes being sure to level it off across both directions.
Finally I finished off the base with a couple of sheets of OSB board, cut to size around the pier ensuring all joins were over solid joists.