2. Astronomy

Observatory Construction

In my 20s and 30s I built two observatories and two observatory telescope mounts (among a number of smaller portable telescopes and mounts). The logistics of handling parts too large and heavy for one person to pick up are interesting. The photos in this gallery will give you a feel for what those projects were like.
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13. The exciting part of the trip was near the top when the tractor drive wheels had almost no traction in the sandy soil and the weight of the 800 lb tractor, 300 lb trailer, and a 1200 lb payload of ties all hung on the winch cable. At this point you have to be good in mechanical design and fabrication (and particularly good at welding things together).
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13. The exciting part of the trip was near the top when the tractor drive wheels had almost no traction in the sandy soil and the weight of the 800 lb tractor, 300 lb trailer, and a 1200 lb payload of ties all hung on the winch cable. At this point you have to be good in mechanical design and fabrication (and particularly good at welding things together).

013ObservatoryTelescopeConstruction

  • 01. The first observatory was 5/8 of a sphere and was 13 feet in diameter. The whole building rotates except the floor and the telescope mounting.
  • 02. There were three scopes mounted on a classic German style mounting. An 8” f/10 reflector (made in high school) is on the back side in this view. The long scope in front is a 7.5” f/10 achromatic refractor (used as a guide scope on long duration photos). The short scope is a 6” f/5 reflector used for wide field photography.
  • 03. This is a “bore shot” of the three scopes, 7.5” at 6:00, the 6” at 10:00 and the 8” is at 2:00.
  • 04. After a few years we decided to move south of town and build a house out in the country. I sold the first observatory and it was carted off on a car-carrying trailer.
  • 05. It was an interesting trip to say the least, driving through the middle of Rochester NY on I-490 in the late afternoon. The dome was successfully installed at its new location.
  • 06. Our new house was next to a county park south of town. A 40 foot high hill in the back yard was a perfect place to build the new observatory. However, that hill presented a logistical problem.
  • 07. Using the old telescope in a portable fashion was a little bit of a challenge due to its weight of several hundred pounds. When a friend saw this photo he said, “There goes Rick with his grub gun!”
  • 08. The hill presented a significant logistical problem when you think of moving tons of materials needed to build the new observatory and telescope. I built a dumping trailer and modified my garden tractor to take a custom built PTO powered winch with a 125 foot long cable.
  • 09. There was about 8 tons of rock and sand transported up the hill to be used for concrete foundations. Having a dumping trailer was very useful. The car ramps helped get the materials into a higher pile.
  • 10. 65 used Railroad ties were purchased and that meant that close to 6 tons of ties had to be moved up the hill. The ties weighed about 200 pounds apiece, so I fabricated an “A” frame crane on the back of the trailer to help in handling the heavy ties.
  • 11. Most of the time I could load 6 ties in the trailer for a trip up the hill.
  • 12. The routine was to park the tractor and trailer at the bottom of the hill and walk the winch cable up to the top of the hill and attach it to a steel rod cemented into the ground.
  • 13. The exciting part of the trip was near the top when the tractor drive wheels had almost no traction in the sandy soil and the weight of the 800 lb tractor, 300 lb trailer, and a 1200 lb payload of ties all hung on the winch cable. At this point you have to be good in mechanical design and fabrication (and particularly good at welding things together).
  • 14. After the foundation supplies were up the hill I started to dig the foundation and burry the electrical service to the site. Notice East horizon in this view is good for observing.
  • 15. After several hours of work with a power trencher the trench for the electrical service was completed. This allowed a 60 amp service wire to be buried and provide power to the new observatory. 60 amp service allowed on site welding.
  • 16. This step is often called “basic astronomy”. The observatory is on the edge of the hill and has a basement. This allowed for some storage and a level base. There was about 11 cubic yards of sandy gravel dug out by hand to form the basement. The 3 year old “supervisor” is now older than I was at the time of this photo.
  • 18. The ties were used as retaining walls around the basement. The trailer mounted crane was used to help position the ties.
  • 20. As a young boy I remember making a crane with my Erector Set and then using the crane to build a log cabin with Lincoln Logs. It took longer that way but it was more fun. Now that experience is paying off as I’m using an “Adult” Erector Set to position much larger logs.
  • 22. After the ties were positioned they were pinned in place with 20” long stainless steel rods.
  • 24. After the 14 foot square building was started the next step was to build the 15.5 foot diameter dome. The first step of dome construction is to make a base ring (bottom part of the dome). This ring is then used as a gluing gig to fabricate 28 curved laminated ribs that will form the frame of the dome.
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