Jun 30

We wrapped up the observatory shed today (at least mostly).  Still figuring out how we want to set some things up but I was fairly impressed by the rigidity of the setup (used a pier from durangoskies.com).  The pier is fairly versatile in leveling, etc. so it was relatively easy to set-up.  The plastic shed was a bit of work, mostly because of leveling issues that we may need to still work on.  Once that was set-up, we put the pier on the concrete and then put sand in the pier.  My goal tonight was just to get enough view of polaris to do a rough setup and lock down all the bolts on the pier and we got enough of a break in the clouds to do that.  Just for fun, I took one 30″ shot of Vega which showed the scope was reasonably aligned without any serious drift aligning.  Thanks to my friend for the use of the property!  Looking forward to enhancing the set-up and taking some nicer pictures on a clear (and moonless) night.  Some immediate to-dos are to put some red safety lighting in the shed, get a timer for bulb pictures, remove some hooks that jut out from some shelves in the shed (it hurts to hit them as you walk around the scope), and set-up some chairs, etc.  Anyway, mission accomplished for the day.  Pictures of the setting up can be found in my photo gallery (link above and/or to the right).