Category: Space

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Building a Roll-off Roof Observatory

For a long time I wanted to have my own observatory for my telescope. It’s a 10″ Newtonian Reflector and with the mount it weighs a ton and takes about 40 minutes to set up… by which time in the UK, the clouds have rolled in again! So I set about looking for an observatory that gave me enough space to show visitors the views through the ‘scope. A dome would have been fine, but didn’t offer the best space option. The solution was a roll-off roof observatory, but the only company in the UK that used to make them, had stopped manufacturing, so I set about designing and sourcing my own.

I’d had an old brick garage in the back garden that we had demolished, and this left a convenient concrete base for the observatory. I managed to find a company in the Netherlands that did kit-built ‘log cabin’ style sheds, and a local garden structure company that were prepared to modify the standard shed so the roof could be rolled off.

The result can be seen in the timelapse video above, and gives me an eight foot square observatory that can be ready in a matter of moments!



Examples of the photos I have managed to take from the new set-up can be seen in the Gallery. In addition, as the concrete base from the old garage was 16′ by 8′, the area that the roof rolls off over made an ideal decking area to enjoy the British sunshine!

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Another school contact with the International Space Station

Well that was fun! Not quite the same as being with the ARISS team in a school, but able to hear the astronaut here quite clearly…
As I had the questions, I thought it would be fun to voice the question onto the phone recording of the contact!

Sorry about the shaky recording – last minute decision, and just an iphone! I also didn’t adjust the frequency on the radio duringthe pass, so it gets a bit raspy towards the end.

Received on the Yaesu FT736 and a triband vertical colinear aerial.

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Starlink satellites

Following a very bright pass of the Starlink satellites on Sunday 19th April that got everyone talking, I thought I’d set up the DSLR to take a hi-res timelapse of the satellite train… Unfortunately due to cloud cover or just being later in the evening, the satellites weren’t seen in the numbers that had been expected.

Here’s the video from the first part of the night – starts at about 21:00 hours and runs for a couple of hours. The photos are 30 second exposures, taken every thirty seconds, replayed at 2 frames per second.

After the cloud rolled in around midnight, I left the camera running through the night and retired to bed. The timelapse caught several of the Lyrid meteors, as well as the Starlink train at about 03:30.

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Allsky timelapse and the meteors

The intention of the Allsky timelapse camera was to try and capture some meteors… I was very pleased on the first night that the camera was live to capture half a dozen meteors! There wasn’t even a scheduled shower! The first major shower is towards the end of April, so I’m looking forward to seeing what can be captured then, clear skies permitting! As before, north is to the right, and it’s a 30 second exposure every 30 seconds. Replayed at 6 frames per second. This timelapse also captures the ISS, which goes into eclipse just after passing overhead.
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AllSky Timelapse and the Starlink satellites

I’ve recently added an Allsky timelapse camera to the end of my observatory. It’s a ‘The Imaging Source’ camera with a 1.9mm lens, pointing straight up, 640x480px resolution. Taking a thirty second exposure every thirty seconds, it captures the whole sky, all night. The aim is to capture meteors as well as the passing satellites. While the Covid-19 pandemic is in effect, we don’t have too many aircraft at the moment! It’s not perfect, and I’m still working on it!

This timelapse sequence starts at about 20:30 BST and ends about 23:45. At the start you can see the start of the Starlink train, closely followed by the ISS passing over. Shortly after this there appears to be another train of Starlink satellites, and finally at the end of the clip is a helicopter (We live close to the Chinook helicopter RAF base!). The clip has been heavily processed to try and enhance the satellites against the sky. North is to the right (over the house) and the satellites are passing west to east.