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Back garden, ungrassed
Before the observatory could be built, a raised vegetable garden had to be removed. The back neighbour's garden is higher than mine, so additional work was needed to prevent a collapse. Viewed: 775 times.
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Back garden - regrassed!
Once the vegetable garden soil was redistributed (multiple passes with a roto-tiller) the grass was put back and it was time to figure out where to put the observatory. The cones mark a possible spot. Viewed: 720 times.
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Work in progress
Tools are strewn around as work goes on. The entire installation took about 8 hours, from roughly 8 am to about 5 pm less any time the guys took for lunch. I appreciated both the hard work involved and the great clean up afterward - a little sawdust (and, of course, the SkyShed) was the only sign of work having been done that day. What's left? Mounting, alignment, building a desk to work at, keeping the mice out, getting power.... trivialities! Viewed: 774 times.
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Late afternoon
For weeks after the observatory was complete the weekend days were dull and dreary and there was no time to grab a decent picture. Late on a Saturday afternoon I was home when the skies briefly cleared, and I got ready to observe. Viewed: 723 times.
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Rolling roof!
Did I mention Christmas is coming? For some reason my wife appreciates the opportunity to add another wreath around the house! Viewed: 793 times.
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A peek inside
I added a small corner desk from IKEA, and put down an indoor-outdoor carpet. The pier is surrounded by steel wool to keep the mice out... Still no power, everything is run from the battery. Note the barrel distortion - this is the same camera I will use to do imaging (until I can afford a replacement, at least).
Viewed: 791 times.
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Ack! The very next morning....
By morning three or four centimetres of snow had fallen. Eighteen shopping days to Christmas!
Viewed: 791 times.
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Waning gibbous moon Viewed: 735 times.
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Cropped M57
This was taken at the prime focus and is cropped but not resampled. The scope is still not properly aligned (one of these nights.....). This is a stack of 28 30-second images - and, lest we forget, is taken from a suburban site deep in the Toronto light-dome. Viewed: 752 times.
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