for imaging. On many frustrating nights I would spend far more time loading and unloading equipment than
actually using it.
Family members generously offered to let me set up a site in the extreme northwest corner of their rural property.
The challenges: occupy no more space than about 15 by 15 feet, make as few permanent changes to the property
as possible, and find the lowest-cost option. Plus, in this limited space I wanted a "warm room" for cold winter
nights.
I had liked the concept of a small shed that rolled off of the pier--however, published plans that I'd seen were built
on either a deck or a patio upon which the shed rolled. I did not want to build a deck--too much work and
expense--and pouring a concrete patio on borrowed land was not an option. I considered rails but did not want to
trip on them all night long.
There was one more challenge. The Rubbermaid shed I ordered was just barely large enough to serve as a warm
room for one small person (me) once the telescope was removed, but it would only fit over the scope if the shed
were stored with the doors facing east or west. This meant that, once rolled off, the shed itself would block my
view of the ecliptic on one horizon.
The solution: have the shed pivot off the telescope. You'll see below what I mean. The shed itself is about
3.5 x 5.5 feet in size; it rides on a wheeled platform that is a little larger, 4 x 8 feet. The platform is depticted in the
drawing below.
the scope. The shed is just barely large enough to use as a warm room once the shed is rolled out. The top picture shows
the scope outside. The bottom one shows the scope rolled into the shed. At this point, the wiring has not yet been buried.
The pivot-off design will allow me to run wiring down through the pivoting pipe and from there to the pier.
