Sirius 2,3 m dome home model

First apologise my english but my schooltime, where I learned some english, is lightyears away but I hope my story is to understand :-)

The past has left their traces on the rollroof, so I had to think about to built am more massive rollroof or to consider also a dome solution. What are the wishes for a new "astrohousing"? Weatherproof, safe protection of the equipment, motorisation, handling of the dome by PC, maybe a control over internet and all this should be payable. It was soon clear to me, that another rollroff construction cannot fullfill my requirements.

In autumn 2009 I started to evaluate which dome can meet my wishes as close as possible. There are a couple of dome manufactures. Some domes with motorisation, but no possibility to controlling by software, other suppliers prices were over my planned budget. Finally my decision was clear .
It should be a dome from Sirius, a manufacturer in australia.  (http://www.siriusobservatories.com).  This  manufacturer was already known to me from astroforums.
Since 2009 the dome is also produced in licence in the southern part in france. This was also a plus, whenever any support is needed.  Before I could order the dome I needed a building licence. Unfortunately on neighbour in a distance of over 250 meters did not agree to my project because he was disturbed in his sight down the valley and such kind of building must be forbidden etc. etc. no more words about that. The funny thing was, that our direct neighbours were exited to see this nice white "champigon" and it would look much better than the wooden rollroof. Well, finally I got the permission for the dome, so that the delivery took place on march 2009. Puh, the single parts took a lot of place in the garage.  

The next was to remove the rollroofconstruction down to the main plattform, of 2x2 meters. On this base I had to mount new wooden plates of 2,5 x2,5 meters in order to fix the walls of the dome.

With Peter (http://pfi.astropedia.ch )

and Markus (https://azug.minpet.unibas.ch/wikiobsvermes/index.php/Main_Page
or http://leq.one-arcsec.org

and or neighbour Pierre, we startet on 10.4.2010 to built up the dome. The mounting of the walls was no big problem. We had much more problems  to mount the upper an lower shutter.  (Status 10.4.2010)
 

Finishing the wooden baseplate and mounting of the domewalls.

  
   

Put on the dome

YES Jupieieijupijupiei

In the meantime the problems with the upper shutter was solved, so the motor could be installed too.

Motor and limit switches (left)

For my "dearest 250 meters neighbours" I had to plant some "green"on the east side of the dome to protect their eyes of shuch an unbeliveable building .

(Status 18.4.2010)

to be continued...
 

Weekend of 24.4.2010

The next step was to mount the gear ring. The dome walls have been labeled clockwise, so it was clear which part have to be mount as next. Now the gear ring did not match to the installed holders! That cannot be! Finally I have found out that the gear rings are labeled counterclockwise...why not :-/.  The installation of the motorhousing was a bit tricky, because it was not so easy to put thre screws thru the drilled wholes of the dome wall. A quick test with the connected battery and the dome was indeed turning. There are some points where the retaining ring hits the innerside of the dome. I had to grind that areas for smooth rotation.

Electronichousing and motor of the lower shutter 

Motordome rotation (Battery not installed)

It is neccessary to glue two stoppers which triggers the limitswitches for a correct opening and closing of the shutters. The stoppers were included in the delivery, also a quick drying glue. A very quick one! Its recommended to mark the correct position of the stoppers with a pencil first, to remove the limitswitches, to grind the surface a bit where the stopper will be fixed and then glue the stopper in place. Again a tipp, organise a tube of araldite as spare!

The next work was to mount the baseplate for the mount. In my case 21x21 cm and 5 mm thick (aluminum). Both plates has 3 identical wholes to mount them (with distancebolts between). The position of the wholes are according a triangle, or close to :-). The lower plate has 3 additional mounting wholes for the theraded bolts, which ends are pressed into the concrete of the pier

 I used 1cm diameter threads of about 30 cm lenght. Two wooden shim kept the distance during drying the concrete and allowed to screw the plate comfortable.

Not so bad ....

to be continued

Some impressions. Nobody has to argue that it would not be possible to take a picture of the soon and moon at the same time  

Weekend withsun 2010

All was prepeared. The weather was fine to go ahead with the work.

Mounted plates.

Polaris was very friendly to me in that night, so I could align the baseplate of the mount exactly to north and mark the coresponding mounting wholes with a peening tool. To cut the threads at the right angle, I used the drillmachine and turned the tap holder by hand 2-3 turns, so I was sure that the screw did not tilt ( I am not a profi). And what a surprise, the plate match!

Cutter with drillmachine                         Cut by hand                                            AP Baseplate mounted 

Now all was ready to install the AP 900 mount. The 12 V powersupply, RS 232 cables and 220 V cable was hidden in a cable channel , but all looks still like a "road work" 

There is enough place for PC and other tech. equipment . Also here a big cable tangle...can be tuned :-) In the same night I could take a pic of M52 and Bubble Nebula

I think the test was successfull.

Weekend of July 11th. The last small installations.

To handle the dome (Rotation and Shutters) it is essential, that both Controllercards are able to correspond together. This happens thru antenna cables. 1 antenna goes around the dome and ist connected to board of the rotatorcontroller. I have fixed the thin cable with hotglue. The other antenna (Shutter) was already installed (see pic, marked in red). The Rotator board ist connected by RS 232 interface to the PC. 

The dome needs "to know" its position. A small magnet has to be to fixed on the gearring. A correspondig sensor ist fixed on the backside of the white motorhousing. If the magnet is at the closest point , the sensor gives the needed pulse to the elctronic. To turn the dome resp. to synchronise with the move of the telescope, it is again a sensor needed. This sensor is placed close to motor shaft. This shaft is painted black and white half half, so the sensor can "see" the turns. In my case there are 226 ticks for one turn of 360°. Unfortunately the sensor was fixed by manufaturer on the white housing, too far away from the shaft. So had to remove the housing and motor to mount the sensor directly on the motorblock (as written in the manual). I also used a distance bush to protect the small board and also not to squeeze the cable.

Contact magnet                           Sensor on motorblock                          Sensor fixed with distance holder 

Maxim DL allows to control telescope and the dome. Important is to install all needed Ascom drivers. It was not possible to move the telescope with maxim (assuming I made a mistake somewhere). I have bridged maxim with "the Sky"and the slew command works fine with "The Sky". 

A great thanks to my helpers, Peter and Markus, and of course to my wife.

But I have to tell some negative points, too. As said by manufacturer, the dome have been installed at factory to test all functions. That's to question. Some pre drilled wholes did not match or have been made on a wrong position. One sensor was placed completely wrong, so could never work. The protection rubber over the door was mounted inclined, so the rubber was pinched when closing the door. I had to drilled all out and fixed it again with rivets. The rubber on the dome is a bit to short, in my opinion. The gear ring is painted, so everywhere are black crumbs mixed with grease. The dome blocked on some points on the retaining ring during turning the dome . Solved with massive grinding with terrible glasfibre dust. The upper shutter did not move and had to be grinded too. The lower shutter does not match to the curvature of the dome. (Problem known, a replacement will be delivered). All this "little" things costed a lot of time and nerves.

Protection rubber on door an dome

      
replaced screws                                                  Shutter does not match

   

Drilled whole does not match                            Heavy grinding to prevent blocking