My observatory.

The observatory is a garden shed with a roll-off roof. It consists of a storage room of 2x3 m and the observatory itself measuring 3x3 m.

The roof rolls open to the north (right in this picture). In closed position it is secured with cable tighteners, it rolls so well that I have to secure it in open position as well when there is too much wind from the north.

A warning to users of a similar roof-securing system as shown in the right image: on a few occasions I noted that the fasteners worked loose during periods of high wind and windgusts from the south (storm). Despite the fact that I used four cable tighteners, two angled towards the north on the northside of the roof (as in the picture) and two angled to the south on the southside I found that during stormy conditions with windgusts from the south, the fasteners could work loose and roof could come open! I was puzzled because I did not understand how it could be possible that the fasteners came loose, I even spent some time in the observatory during such a storm but could not see what happened!!!??? After the first time this happened I payed even more attention to make sure I properly closed up the observatory after use, but it happened again on two occasions, each time during a storm with wind from the south.

After consideration, I think there were three causes: (1) I do not normally put much tension on the cable tighteners, (2) under high turbulent windloads and/or windgusts, the wooden structure may be somewhat "flexible" and (3) the angle of the upper part of the hooks was almost horizontal, meaning the hook could slip out of the eyebolt when the roof would move over about 15 mm! (see image). So, I changed the orientation of the 4 eyebolts, I altered the orientation of the south fasteners to just keep the roof down and I put two extra stormlocks on the north side of the roof! So, if the roof now opens under the action of a southerly wind, it will probably be my fault not having secured the roof properly...

The observatory housed a heavy equatorial Alt 7AD mount of german manufacture,now replaced with a AP1200GTO. The main instrument is a Vixen VMC260, but I have used quite a few different telescopes in the observatory. Using the Losmandy dovetail system with Robin Casady saddleplates I can mount other equipment  piggy-back on the main telescope without too much problems, I just have to make sure the combination is well balanced when doing CCD-imaging.

Picture by Dominique Dierick, aka DoDi.

C-14 on ALT 7AD

The C-14 had been equipped with a Clement Compliant Focuser with RoboFocus.  A very sturdy albeit somewhat strange-looking focuser that easily supports the weight of the SBIG ST-10XME camera.  This allows me to use the normal focusing of the C-14 for visual or webcam use, the Clement focuser is used for autofocus or remote focus of the CCD-camera.  I have the possibility to lock down the C-14  mirror but I really do not have problems with mirror shift.