Search this site
Embedded Files
Basingstoke Astronomical Society
  • Home
  • About us
    • Contact us
    • Membership
    • Outreach
    • Equipment Booking
  • Calendar & Events
  • Whats up
  • Weather
  • Gallery
    • aurora borealis
    • Astrophotography
  • Useful Links
  • Image Acquisition/Processing Tools
    • PixInsight
    • Seti Astro
    • Siril
    • N.I.N.A.
  • Members Projects
    • AllSky camera build
Basingstoke Astronomical Society
  • Home
  • About us
    • Contact us
    • Membership
    • Outreach
    • Equipment Booking
  • Calendar & Events
  • Whats up
  • Weather
  • Gallery
    • aurora borealis
    • Astrophotography
  • Useful Links
  • Image Acquisition/Processing Tools
    • PixInsight
    • Seti Astro
    • Siril
    • N.I.N.A.
  • Members Projects
    • AllSky camera build
  • More
    • Home
    • About us
      • Contact us
      • Membership
      • Outreach
      • Equipment Booking
    • Calendar & Events
    • Whats up
    • Weather
    • Gallery
      • aurora borealis
      • Astrophotography
    • Useful Links
    • Image Acquisition/Processing Tools
      • PixInsight
      • Seti Astro
      • Siril
      • N.I.N.A.
    • Members Projects
      • AllSky camera build
Meteor Detection by Radar
Micro-Observatories

Meteor Detection by Radar

Trevor Gainey's presentation on detecting meteors using Software Defined Radio tools 

Micro-Observatories

 Two flavours - mini dome and mini roll-off-roof. 

The purpose of an observatory is to be ready at a moments notice in the face of random and freqeuntly grey weather conditions. 

The purpose of a mini observatory is to get the most from your smart telescope investment and get as much time on the sky as possible to do extended imaging. A Mini observatory supports that by providing power and controls to automatically open and continue observing from the point the weather or daylight last forced you to stop. 

Real science and imaging hours is now possible. 

The mini dome with retracting covers has the virtue that the telescope inside can see equally well in any orientation and the dome doesnt have to rotate. However total retraction of the cover is not possible since the pier underneath limits the degree of rotation below the horizontal. The answer to this is to split the hemispherical covers into multiple nested leaves and have them retract into each other as the roof rotates below the base lip.

The scale of this needs to be between 40 cm - ie big enough for a seestar or a dwarf smart scope on an equatorial base and 1m, which is big enough for most portable telescopes on an equatorial mount as well as big enough to implement the motors driving the retracting leaves. 

There are people with websites who have done this by 3d-printing and screwing lots of small parts together. This design follows that approach.

Mini roll-off-roof observatory. 

This design is a variation on a simple roll off roof wher the roof is the flat roof on a pent shed. The roof rolls off towards the North and is meant to slide over the top and down the back so it is no longer in the line of sight. Telescopes used in this observatory need to be stored aligned N-S so they are at the least height above the mount (in the case of a German equatorial mount)  

The deign below accomodates a tripod and 760mm turning circle. Again the hard part is to work out the opening and controlling mechanisms. 

Google Sites
Report abuse
Page details
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse