How I Built my Observatory - best upgrade ever! 

Great Tour Mark it made me feel like I was there!. Look forward to meeting you in April. Got another little surprise for you apart from what we discussed. Clear Dark skies my friend!

Bro you’re literally living the dream, amazing job!

Sir, you are absolutely correct: security is not an option - it's as important as a good pier for the scope. I will share a succinct story with you. I have an acquaintance who had a 24" telescope - an SC - which I understand cost him in excess of $60K. It was a remote observatory, but well built with brick and block. Well as you should expect, 'locals' found out about this facility; they broke in and removed everything. My friend, who I put at least 75% of the blame for the break-in, had no security system - nothing. He had not notified his insurance company, and they refused to compensate him, as the observatory was NOT located within what they perceived to be his HOME. If he had notified his insurance company, he may have paid a premium for insurance (for the observatory) but he was amiss and in my opinion - he was not thinking. In any case, you are a wise gentleman: security is essential, and notifying one's insurance company to ENSURE that they will cover the observatory and contents - is just a good plan. GREAT video - thank you.

Thanks for giving us a look inside your observatory and cave/office. The reason that there were no birds on the feeders is due to them being empty and bare. Fill them especially in winter and they will be inundated with visitors. You have aperture fever wanting the 14” and I want the 11”😂

We absolutely love our 70mm William Optics refractor. Such amazing quality telescopes

Thank you for a very interesting tour of your observatory!

Lovely job, thanks for sharing!

Thank you for the tour! Great observatory!

Thanks for the tour. Great ideas here.

Thanks for the tour. You got me thinking of my own observatory now!

Very inspiring. Thank you for letting us in your life.

Great Tour Mark! I discovered you while listening to Chris and Shane on the Actual Astronomy Podcast. I will be building my roll off roof observatory later this summer. I'll be sure to remember your wise advice during that construction! I've enjoyed your descriptions of the Winter Star Party down in the Florida Keys. Take care and Clear Skies!

Very interesting video, Mark -thanks for putting it together. Looks like a super build. I have just this morning published a video of my own plastic-shed-modified build - nothing inside it yet, so hoping to sort that out in the next few weeks!

Nice video Mark. Your Observatory is So Awesome. Its My Dream To have a Skies like you someday😃. Thanks For This Tour!!

Thanks for the tour, Mark. Looks like the perfect observatory. Planning where to put the observatory and getting the dimensions right while considering future upgrades is probably more time-consuming than actually constructing it.

Thanks for the tour sir. Interesting setup and location. My observatory southern horizon is also obscured by trees so I can relate to limitations in target selection. You’ve thought about your system thoroughly, notwithstanding the lack of power on the plinth. This video gives me ideas about features I would consider for my “next” observatory. Enjoy watching your tour. Cheers!

Very informative Mark. Really must get on and design my roll off roof obsy!

wow nice one fantastic content just on with getting me self sorted for a pier then hope to build a observatory ..

Very interesting Mark. I love the 3D models. Would be perfect for outreach projects. Thank you for that informative video.

Oh hell yes!

Super video Mark, it was great to get a detailed tour of your obsy, and hear your thinking behind some of the features (like a roll off roof allows you to still see the whole sky - kind of obvious but never really thought about that before). Lovely close ups of the moon by the way. I have thought about an obsy many times but I mostly do visual which really only takes 5 minutes to set up and tear down, so struggling to justify it, but your video makes it so hard to resist! Also I have a small garden, so there would be other prices to pay. I think in afew years' time I'll probably go for it - my ideal is to have an EAA setup, probably with a C11 and fastar setup for ultra-fast imaging. I'll let you know!

Nice setup!

Really nice observatory!

There is another advantage of the roll off roof versus the classic dome. It doesn't look like an observatory. This is probably the biggest deterrent as far as security goes. If it looks like a garden shed then it will attract less criminal attention. An observatory dome would have been very noticeable as something unusual in the landscape.

Nice 😎

Really interesting video. I will put a link to it in the description box of my observatory tour video that I published today 😁

State farm insurance told me that keeping my stuff in the house I was covered if anybody broke in. If I built a observatory its not covered because its not part of the house. You have a nice setup there.

Muy buen observatorio, bien equipado,me motiva mucho hacer el mío, gracias, Chile 51

You can always tell us people that have slogged gear around without an observatory even if they have one now because our counterweights are all chipped and rusty! ;)

Lucky you have reasonably dark skies. Sewing belt loops on the too big trouser issue, try to find a matching colour of material though!

Hi, thanks for taking the time to share your videos. It's given me some ideas for mine. How did you prevent water getting in from the far raised gable end? Did you leave some overlap? How's that been? Thanks

Inspirational. Thanks. Could you tell me what Make/model your motorised focuser is please? I am looking for something similar.

Very good Mark, see you have made some more improvements since my last visit.

I wonder how the mechanical drive fares, especially the lubricants coating the gear faces, when the inside of a small shed rises to about 40 deg Celsius in mid-June to mid-September. Nice video so far, will continue to watch. I appreciate your efforts.

Hi there I hope you are well I wish I lived near to you very good video's really really good I just want to now how tall is your pier in your observatory I'm going to build my own and I just want some advice thanks for the videos I am learning alot from them brilliant and I'm getting the az-eq6 pro for a 300mm Newtonian telescope

The observatory looks great. I wish there was a company building roll-off roof observatories here in Australia. Like you, I didn't want to build one myself from scratch and that's one reason I chose a kit dome instead.

How hi must be the walls not block the sky and to reduce the wind effect?

The observatory looks nice, would you recommend the company involved?

Do you have it all insured??? If not, you REALLY REALLY should

Who are you talking to?

Where do you live that you have so many locks and security cameras? This is why I don't have a observatory I would be worrying if someone was trying to steal my stuff. Me I keep everything in the house.