Jay Sottolano’s Dream Roll-Off Roof Observatory (Observatory Tours #2) 

This one is also network enabled so that if I want to take it to a more remote operation from inside the house, I can.. For now, the warm room will suffice and still lets me walk out and look up!

It really is good. I was thinking that as the wheels run in a C channel type of thing it would also keep the roof from lifting if there was an unexpected strong gust of wind. Of course it would have to be a very strong gust as the roof looks solid and heavy. Curious to know if there was additional locking/securing mechanisms for when it was all stowed/closed? I wonder if getting somebody to roll that C channel into a hoop would allow the same wheel setup to be used for a dome. Giving it the easy wheel change ability? So many benefits in using the garage door mechanism. The easy replacement of wheels as mentioned. But the availability of replacement parts would a big one too. Any big hardware store would have everything you needed to repair or upgrade the setup. Also the roof could be any length as the garage door opener is designed to work with various heights of garage doors. You could also start with a basic door opener and later replace it with a fancier network controllable version or possibly just upgrade the existing one by adding a network control module. Very clever. 😀

@@jaseastroboy9240 Hi Jase.. Thanks.. The wheel "housing" does offer protection to the roof lifting but I might add some additional corner mounted steel "brackets" just in case of a crazy Nor'easter or Hurricane or Tropical Storm, etc. coming through the area, so no, not something standard, but easy enough to DIY. Mother Nature can be mean sometimes! Agree, lots of good reasons for the entire Garage Door opener setup.. The one they use is a commercial grade one because of the roof's weight and that's standard with the bldg... It was nice to find out it was also network capable!!

Thanks Helena. I got the thought to invite Nico to come do mine after watching you and he at yours! Hope skies are clearing there for you!!!

I enjoyed having Nico here... I think you can pull the garage door opener model, etc. from the video, but I can provide it if you need.

Guy. I also took into account ANY possibility of two OTAs potentially bumping into one another if I was slewing in opposiite directions. That and the desire to be able to have people in the observatory and not bump into the scopes. ;-)

Thanks John.. Like I said in the video, a very supportive spouse. 🙂 That's the "next up" area to complete.. All the wiring for power and internet are there, just needed to finish putting up the walls in the telescope area. I can send you a pic if you want. Drop me a message on Facebook.

Thanks Stephen.. I'll let her know and agree totally!!!

Thanks.. Nico gets the credit.. He makes it so conversational that you don't really think about the camera rolling. 🙂

I'd love a video of Nico touring your observatory! Your EAA setup seems very advanced compared to most Nebula Photos tutorials, which tend to be more aimed at introductory astrophotography. Automatic slewing, plate-solving, and stacking would probably amaze many viewers!

Thanks. It is a dream come true..

@@CurtBlakeslee I would like Nico to do that too. Luke has an outstanding obsy. It seems as everyone has got one nowadays... Although I am automated almost entirely myself too, I don't think Nico will visit my "observatory"... You can see on my channel, it is just two tripods which I put in my garden and pre-designated spots :P

So happy for you Jay!! Re: my obsy, aw shucks haha! I'd be more than happy to show off my observatory sometime if ever Nico was around this neck of the woods! Clear skies folks!

@@lukomatico Thank you..

Good Luck Al.. Let me know if I can help in any way. 🙂

the thread on cloudy nights of home observatories is always a blast to look through, all sorts of designs!!!

Thanks Ray! Looking forward to seeing yours in person some day.

Jim/Angela.. For me, as I mentioned in the video, the walls pretty much worked with the tree line (at least that was the plan! :-) ) .. The other issue here in PA was the requirements on the roof for the snow load. Would have perhaps like a "flatter" roof, but 50 psf requirement (unless I went with steel truss assembly) set the tone for the roof..

Yep, very important to isolate the pier.

We used a 1/2" foam pad wrapped around twice to create that spacing. I could jump up and down or drop a bowling bowl (LOL) and the piers would not see it. :-)

Thanks David. 🙂

Andrew.. J Bolts bolted to a form will certainly work, but this isn't going ANYWHERE!!! :-)

Greg... there a lot of considerations around cost. (foundation, electric runs, etc., etc.) If you send me a message, I can try to address some of it. Also some things that (if you're able) you can do to mitigate some of it. For me (and given frost lines, etc.) the biggest piece to get right was what the building was going to sit on.

Agreed about more difficult to pull, but you can make it work with some spacing. Just one less thing to worry about. I have had friends where small little visitors liked chewing up the subfloor wiring. I also tried to isolate the subfloor as best I could from the outside. Time will tell!

Yes do start planning now! I have been dreaming since '78, and I still don't have personal observatory. I spent too much time dreaming and not enough time planning. Good Luck! - Cheers

Yes, smaller footprint and better wind protection are the main pros of the dome. The cons seem to be: they break more often due to higher complexity, usually higher cost, and the small ones feel a bit claustrophobic to me as a big guy.

At our Astronomy Club's observatory, we have a roll off room with a Celestron C14 and a 15ft dome with a 30" Dobsonian, the roll off room is more practical, never breaks and has a better view of the night sky. Being inside a dome for hours at a time late at night, you can loose your sense of direction just looking through the narrow shutter door, so we put up decals with the directions and AZ degrees around the interior of the dome.

True about having wider horizons, but walls give more protection from wind, and only have to clear the roof when it snows! 🙂. I've seen lots of folks though using whole building roll off designs.

True words Michael..

Sorry for the delay.. Don't know if they go to Florida, but check with Mark at the company. They do have different sized ones available, with and without warm room.

That's correct.

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. Use a custom white balance to see colors more normally. Or just balance the color channels in post processing, the data is there, but the balance of the colors is different and the camera doesn't know how to automatically compensate since it doesn't know you modified the physical filter inside.

@@NebulaPhotos , thanks for getting back to me, Of course your right, I shot the whirlpool last night and the data is amazing. Keep up the great work, we appreciate it.

discord.gg/nebulaphotos there are some public channels, but many more channels open up if you join on patreon

@@NebulaPhotos thankyou