Space Place Information
Welcome! The Space Place Home Observatory is built in a spare attic room in my home in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The room was finished and a 7' x 7' opening cut in the roof. A weather-proof lid rolls on two rows of metal wheels attached to the inside, under-surface of the lid. Two inside tracks(which support the wheels) raise and lower the lid using a lever system (see below). When closed and sealed, the wheels and the track and lever system are completely contained inside and shielded from the weather. When elevated, the lid rolls onto the outside receiving tracks. The floor is reinforced to support a permanent pier on which the mount and telescopes are attached.
While we have to fight the lights of Idaho Falls (pop. 50,000) and nearby 17th street (one of the main business drags), the permanent mount and attic location allow convenient and frequent observing. The lid can be opened in about 5 minutes and since the mount has auto startup with no star alignment needed, the whole system can be up, running, and aligned to the night sky in less than 10 minutes. Deep sky imaging is possible with the 2-3 arc-minute pointing of the mount and the CCD camera. For more on the pros and cons of city observing, see an excellent article by Alan MacRobert at Sky and Telescope. Another interesting article is Dissecting Light Pollution by Arthur R. Upgren.
Opening and closing the lid is done from the inside. A lever bar is inserted in a receiver and the tracks can be raised or lowered. When the tracks are raised, the lid is moved onto the outside tracks with a 5' push rod and then pulled back, when needed, with a rope attached to the under-surface.
Archimage computer controlled mount - from Merlin ControlsC-11 Schmidt-CassegrainEDT 130 5" Astrophysics Refractor (mounted simultaneously with the C-11)ST-2000XM CCD cameraPC (1.3 Ghz P4) running The Sky, CCDSoft, and Maxim DL/CCDFor more info please e-mail Pat Neeley: jpat@srv.net