Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

The door was fitted next, followed by the "Pinetree" sign. It was the old house name, but as the new observatory has a pinetree amongst the trees opposite, it seemed appropriate to bring the sign for the new observatory. All the corners were strengthened with half inch ply triangles, since that was a job that the roof would normally do.



With that done, there wasn't much more I could do that day, so I packed the tools away, took a few general views of the observatory with the walls done and went indoors to cool off.

 

12th July 2022

I started to add the wheels to the roof end panels. There were four larger wheels to support the weight and three smaller wheels to help guide the roof and keep it on the runner.



The roof ends were balanced in place, on top of the runners to get a feel for the height and to check if any of the observatory walls would need trimming to allow for the aluminium runner.

 

13th July 2022

I continued working on the roof walls, getting the rear wall filled, sanded and painted, then made a start on the fixed part of the front wall. I also measured up where North was so that I could drill the solar system pier for the pier adapter. The concrete took some drilling, but I got there in the end and was able to glue the studding and base plate onto the pier. It was left overnight to set.



14th July 2022

The next day, I fitted the rest of the adapter and mount and trialled both scopes on the mount to get an idea of how much higher than the roof runner they would be. This would dictate the size of the opening flap in the front wall of the roof.



While set up, I grabbed a few quick videos of the sun using a solar continuum filter. This filter allows green light at the 540 nanometre wavelength to pass through, allowing better surface details to be captured. The videos are processed to give a final sharper image than a single photograph could achieve. Several groups of Sun spots were visible, many the size of the Earth or larger.

 

Over the next few days, I made the second pier adapter and also painted the inside of the roof panels to protect them from damp.

23rd July 2022

I bought the timber for the roof runner supports and clamped them in place to establish the end support position.



This allowed me to mark out the foundation location for the end supports.



After marking the foundation position, I dismantled the runner supports and started digging. Towards the end of the day, I got the concrete poured in hole number one.

 

24th July 2022

I began digging the other end foundation and found a huge tree root. The only way I had to remove it was with a flat wood bit and drill it out bit by bit. To took some time and by the time I'd got the remains out, the hole was somewhat bigger than I planned. The last hole was in the centre and not too many obstructions in that one. The concrete was poured mid afternoon.

While that was curing, I went to the workshop and painted the upright supports with three coats of shed paint and painted the end grain in waterproof PVA glue. Also shown in that picture is some of the hardware for the roof.

25th July 2022

Time for the roof runner supports. The long timbers were used to project the roof line backwards to the foundations, with a ton of measuring to try and keep everything square. Once they were bolted down, I started assembling the roof supports.



It took all day to get them cut, aligned, fitted and painted and even more measuring to get the second one at the same angle and parallel.

 

26th July 2022

The second telescope mount adapter was completed that morning, followed by moving outside to add the diagonal bracing to the roof runners.



Once the bracing was done, I started fitting the aluminium runners. It took some time to get the first exactly straight and then to get the second one parallel to it.



One end roof panel was brought out for a trial fit. The weather was looking ok for the following day, so I planned on assembling the roof.

 

27th July 2022

All the walls for the roof were brought out and I started assembling them, using many clamps and lots of measuring before screwing things together.



Assembly of the four walls took some time, but eventually they were rolling free up and down the runners. Joining the six panels that made up the roof was next. They had been poorly assembled ( by gorillas with nail guns ) in the factory and so many of the battens extended beyond the cladding, or the cladding ends weren't flush with each other. It was slow going with quite a bit of trimming to get them to butt together properly.



Bolts and clamps were added to hold the roof in place when closed. It was putting on quite a bit of weight, so I was going to need something to assist in closing it on my own.



The end was in sight however and I would soon be looking to other aspects of the garden landscaping.

 

An amazing project with great attention to detail.

 

28th July ~ 2nd August 2022

There were lots of small jobs done over the next few days. Starting on the 28th, the other pier adapter was fitted to the top of the second concrete pier. Both the front and rear roof walls had timber diagonals added to help resist sagging under their own weight.



By the time they were all done, the resin anchoring the pier adapter was set, so both scopes were mounted for the first time to check the roof clearance prior to making the opening front flap.



The front flap was made from the left over sections of shed. There wasn't much left unused, despite my shed being a bit shorter in height than the flat pack design. On the second of August, the roof flap was brought to the observatory and test fitted. There were a few tight spots that would need trimming.

While in place, the hinge positions were marked on the roof so that the bottom edge could be recessed for the hinges. It was removed, the recesses chiselled out and refitted. This allowed me to open and close it while trimming the bottom edge until it closed properly. Once I knew it fitted, it was removed and the outside was given two coats of green.

 

3rd August 2022

Observatory work was paused on the 3rd as we needed to cut the park side of our Hawthorn hedge. There's no access from our garden, so the petrol trimmer, bulk bags and wheelie bin were taken for a short walk to get there.



4th August 2022

After fitting the soffits, I was ready for the felt roof. It took one and a half rolls of felt. The edges were glued down with bitumen paint and after nailing it all in place.



The whole roof was painted in a silver, heat reflective bitumen paint, which took about four hours! To work the paint into the grit of the felt, I had to use small circular motions with the brush. Side to side brushing left small unpainted areas. My wrist was killing me by the end of it, along with my knees from balancing on the roof. At least I now had a roof was the observatory was watertight.

 

5th August 2022

With several hours of clear sky forecast that night, I was in a race to get the observatory operational; so I could pack up on my own, in the dark and close the roof without help. I failed to find any eye bolts at B&Q, so ended up welding one from a screw in eye and M10 studding. Facias were added over the felt roof edges. Two spring bump-stops were added to the bottom of the runners and the winch was mounted on the floor by the back wall. I was still waiting for the postman to bring a 'V' pulley.

The pulley arrived mid afternoon, allowing me to complete the roof winch mechanism. A catch was added to the front flap, to hold it open when needed. Some additional bolts were added to the front flap, locking into the aluminium runners when closed.



By late afternoon, I was tidying up and vacuuming out the observatory, followed by fitting the mount and 8 inch scope. First light was on the Moon, visually, followed by a DSLR blue sky Moon - then it clouded over.



I switched off and closed up, waiting for the promised clear sky at 10pm. While closed up, it rained, followed by a rainbow over the now active, 'though still incomplete observatory.



It did clear up again and I did some close up Lunar imaging, including the Rubber Duck on the Moon! There's also "Sid the Sloth" and "Manny the Mammoth" from the "Ice Age" film, a cat, dog, dodo and many other things up there I bet you never knew about!

 

Amazing! I bet it was very exciting to get everything up and functional

 

7th August 2022

I started fitting the trim and cover strips over the joints in the observatory wall panels. During this, the drive belt on my bandsaw snapped, which delayed fitting some of the smaller pieces, particularly the bits for the front flap which need tapering.

13th August 2022

Plywood hoops were made to fasten the neoprene fabric around the piers to close up the gap in the floor. The first scope and mount were removed in order to fit the ring around that pier. Once done, it was reinstalled, followed by the mount being fitted to pier two.



At this point, progress on the observatory slowed down as the big jobs were completed and lots of small jobs needed doing. In late August, the armoured cable was laid out and fastened along the roof runner, entering the observatory just under the runner. An additional guide wheel was added to each side of the roof to help stop the sides from spreading under the weight of the roof.

In mid September I began work on the steps, made from some planking left over from the plinth. The diagonals were cut over length to start with so they could then be carefully cut to the height of the entrance. The steps would rest against the plinth, but used small metal locating pins to hold them in place.

At the end of September, the plinth was drilled to allow the steps to fit. The door can still shut with the steps in place to keep the wind out. When not needed, the steps store inside the door way to leave the lawn free of obstructions for cutting.

 

As you may have noticed from the dates, this was still the back end of 2022 ( I still working on the garden now! ). On the last day of September, I turned my attention to the bottom of the garden. I was out with the tape measure, planning for the next phase of the garden work. As you can see, this area was still overgrown and still had a lot of the observatory digging spoil under the plastic sheet. This area was going to take up much of 2023.



Back in October 2022, with the observatory pretty much done, we got around to ordering some raised bed planters. I had originally planned to make some timber ones, but the cost of materials was way too much. We ended up ordering some galvanised steel ones ( 6 x 3ft ) for about £80 each from memory. They arrived on the 6th. Lynne didn't like the bright galvanised finish, so I had to spray them with brown Hammerite.

 

9th October 2022

After a day of painting and a couple of days for the paint to harden off, we began assembling them between the shed and observatory.



The bottom layer was filled with Hawthorn that we'd cut, shredded and bagged when we first moved in. Top soil and compost would make up the top two thirds of the fill.



14th October 2022

By mid October, it was getting cold out. Most of the planned outdoors work was done for the year. There were some indoors house jobs to do, but I also turned my attention to the old driveway gate I mentioned earlier. On the 14th, it was given a good jetwash and then dismantled for restoration. This rotten gate was key to the next phase of the garden work. The thread title gives it away a little. I was going to build a garden railway - fullsize!