Tips on painting - use a white, off white or cream color on the walls. Darker colors absorb more heat from sunlight and you will cook in the summer. Same for the roof - pick white corrugated metal. Tar shingles are heavy and hold heat a long time. Last tip - paint the interior before installing anything. The wood will get wet during the time the roof is open and soak into uncoated surfaces. All this learned while building my own observatory :). Good luck!!
Yeah you could also do radiant paint for the wood before the roof is installed so the roof wood reflects heat away. Though my idea is going with what Astrobackyard did. Quick and easy, and if we move it moves. If I ever build out on land then I'd go ham on a new setup.
Good idea not to use dark colors. Not only you wont cook inside, but more importantly the structure will not radiate heat and make distortion in the air that the telescope will be looking through :)
The reason you may be off a little when lining up your cuts, because when you make a cut, you have to account for the width of the blade itself. That is called the Kerf. Great bulding plan though. I have 60 acres in East Texas where you can see the Milky way, and want to build an observatory.
I don’t know if you’ve completed building your roof outriggers yet, but you haven’t, don’t make the tracks level with those of the building. On my observatory I have metal plates and angle iron for the casters to roll on. Because I made my outriggers level, I get water rolling back into the observatory which then drip down the walls. I think a slight downward angle would have prevented that.
Definately coming along nicely. I can relate to double marking the studs as I do the same. Same frustrastion with the rain during the build. When you get to the roof, consider using 3/4" shims between the wall top-caps and the runners holding the trusses in place. This will let you put all the trusses in place and squared up adding in the rails afterwards. I found that by doing this, once the rails were fit and the rollers screwed in place, the roof actually lifted off the shims. It also let me function the rolling roof before adding the additional weight of the full roof. There was no problem supporting my weight to close up the roof panneling - Food for thought. Would love to see you do a follow-up presentation on how to determine your FOV within the shed when looking to shoot DSO's.
I've finished a 1.7m tall pier, 1ft high deck, just waiting on my shed to arrive and I'll have my observatory up and running! It is so exciting seeing it come together!
most outstanding job, now i have no reason not to build mine seeing you can do it by yourself. Thanks so much for the in-depth information very helpful.
It's looking good. I know what you mean about doing something like this by yourself. It's nice to be able to say 'I built it' rather than 'we built it'. I'll be starting my 2 metre x 2 metre storage shed/observatory in the next few days and using heavy duty drawer slides for a lightweight flat roof.
Nice job so far, but I am Really surprised you did not put a waterproof breathable membrane around the framing before covering with your exterior boarding, this is a normal thing to do with any exterior type building of this nature and design….🤔🤔
Looks real good. You are so accurate and precise. I have had my observatory for 17 years. After about 6years the roll off rails made of 4x6’s started slowly bending and warping.i had a 14 ft span with a 4x4 in the middle. I eventually switched to steel ibeams and the problem went away. My angle iron which the V groove wheels ride on was welded to the i-beam.
looking good lot of progress for this time of year. a trick we found while doing craft show on popup canopies was to bow a pool noodles in the corners to hold the top from sagging similarly a couple of pvc pipes could be bowed against the walls to keep your tarp from sagging in the middle ( also good to use for conduit latter) looking forward to learn more from your build hope to someday get an observatory made for us as we live in one of those good dark spaces (3/4 mile to nearest neighbor and12 to the nearest town) HAVE FUN and happy holidays
Use a section of Z flashing along the top edge of the wall when you add the filler panel on, after installing the roll off beams. This will help keep water out of the observatory.
Your building looks nice. SCREWS for constructing the framework. Years ago Habitat for Humanity built 2 houses almost side by side. In one house they used common (not galvanized) nails and in the other they used screws. That's in an area where the wind gets high at times. During a strong wind the house constructed with nails stood, but the one built solely with screws suffered damage because many screws broke because screws were brittee while the nails were more pliable and bent instead of breaking. The house built with nails survived because the nails bent a little in the wind, yet sprang back to their original shape when the wind let up. That was years ago and the screws might not ne as brittle now as they were back in those days. You might already know that galvanized nails are required when building with pressure treated material. The chemicals in pressure treated material attacks and weakens non galvanized nails. I got that galvanized nail information years ago. My understanding is that more recently different chemical(s) are used for pressure treated (insect resistant) wood is different now. I think galvanized nails are still recommended. The only other thing I noticed is: in my location nail spacing for sheathing is much closer than 12 inches. That's because of the wind loading where I'm located. 12 inches might be correct for you. Your lumber supplier should have that information. OR a builder who is required to meet building codes. All the best to you.
I'm greatly enjoying your project even if I'll never build one (I live in one of the top light-polluted cities in the world...). It does make me laugh the effect that having so many fine tools and helpers (you do have great choices of equipment!) makes you tend to forget how people have built stuff before CNC and precision machining. Boy! How I laughed at your laser level when -as someone already pointed out- a transparent water-filled tube would have done the job better!😆 Thanks for sharing and I look forward to the rest of the process. Have a happy new year!
My favorite part was staying dry in the storm. I hate it when SGP doesn't take my scheduled auto flats so I'm cancelling my subscription and switching to voyager.
Such an exciting project, Nico! I doubt I'll ever have the space to build an observatory but I always vicariously enjoy watching people make spaces that work just the way they want :)
You're encouraging me to get started on my observatory. You have really come a long way. Thanks for sharing. I can get an idea now what I am up against. I will be glad to see what it looks like when you're finished. Godspeed!
With so much wood involved I guess you'll have to deal with wasps and hornets at least twice a week in the warm seasons to get them out as they simply love wood! :-)
This is very impressive work Nico. Sure, you’ve made mistakes (everyone does), you’ve done some stuff that others want to tell you a “better way” but who cares? You’re doing a great job, especially for someone building something like this for the first time. Can’t wait to see the next video, even though it may be some time due to weather. Regardless, keep up the great work you’re doing! Happy Holidays ~ Phil
I remember when I was building my observatory not that long ago, and every day it kept feeling more real. That was never so strong as when I built the walls.
Nope, they are correct for my location, I can only image down to 25-30 degrees above the horizon due to the tree line on my property, so the tree line is my limit not the walls. I’ve now had the chance to test this and all my measurements were correct thankfully.
Correct, it won't be sealed / temperature controlled - difficult with a roll-off roof. Some people add a warm room that can be temp. controlled, but I didn't do one mostly to cut down on cost/complexity.
