{"id":10310,"date":"2023-04-29T11:37:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T15:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/?p=10310"},"modified":"2023-04-29T11:39:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T15:39:03","slug":"how-to-move-an-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/2023\/04\/how-to-move-an-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"How to move an observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Serenity II rolling off to the east<\/figcaption><\/figure>The Starlight Cascade Gardens and Observatories Serenity II observatory needed to move.
\nIt has been in its current location for approximately two years. In that time some of the thoughts and assumptions of that time have shown to be wrong. In its initial 2 year ago design the 8′ deck became a 10′ deck in the hopes of rolling it further away from the mount.
\nInitially the roll off building was meant to go to the east, where it would be under the treeline in the line of sight from the telescope to the roof peak. In reality, measurements later showed that it was far taller than the treeline and did in fact often block planetary objects on the Ecliptic.
\nSo the decision was made to move it.. more specifically to rotate it 90 degrees CCW to the north. That would clear up the eastern horizon.
\nJust before the day of the move, more though went into this, more measurements were done, and it was realized that moving 90 deg CCW would in fact cause a new problem… Polaris may be obstructed by the roof peak. The actual measurement from the primary mirror in its home\/park\/facing polaris position was around 40 degrees. This was close enough that all things considered.. was too close.
\nSo at the last minute, the move was changed from 90 deg CCW to 45 deg CCW.
\nThis would be the best of both worlds, opening up the eastern horizon and keeping the northern horizon and Polaris accessible.
\nThe move occurred on Friday 2023 April 28 and took about 6 hours start to finish.
\nThe process was basically to jack the deck and building up, support them on 2×8 wood and slide\/push them around in place.
\nNew holes were dug, gravel and sand laid down, then the two deck blocks of each foot was moved around into place.
\nThe deck was lowered, locking into place in the deck blocks.
\nLevelling was performed using shims on the top of the deck block.
\nDone!
\nMany pain pills later and rest followed!
\nThis is the new position of the observatory:<\/p>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
looking east<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
looking NE<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
looking north<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Starlight Cascade Gardens and Observatories Serenity II observatory needed to move. It has been in its current location for approximately two years. In that time some of the thoughts and assumptions of that time have shown to be wrong. In its initial 2 year ago design the 8′ deck became a 10′ deck in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10317,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10310\/revisions\/10317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}