The Dog House Observatory
June 5, 2009
On my 50th birthday, I watched this observatory being built at my home just north of Guelph, Ontario, by Wayne Parker’s crew from SkyShed. The observatory was a 50th birthday present from my wife Gail. Wayne and I sat on a couch on my driveway and talked (actually he mostly talked, and I mostly listened). We had a gas! I built a fully insulated warm room inside the 12’x14′ observatory. The pier is filled with construction sand and attached to concrete footings set about 2m deep into the ground. There are storage benches along the north wall, and overall it’s a nice place to hang out as well as to image the sky.
Having an observatory has completely changed my astronomy experience. I spend relatively little time setting up and closing down, and can take advantage of very small windows of clear sky to capture images.
The last thing to automate is the roof, including an all-sky camera to detect when clouds roll in.
Awesome observatory Ron! Looks like a great place to hang out and image and sure beats roughing it in a camping chair like I’ve been doing. Your images are truly inspirational. I will be following your work closely, and I hope to meet you in the near future.
Very nice mate !!
Great setup and love your work! An inspiration for a late but enthusiastic starter to astro imaging 🙂
Very nice setup and your beautiful image results are truly an inspiration.
Having personally been in the doghouse I can say it is superb. The warm room is indeed warm and the shots taken from this observatory are phenomenal. Thanks Ron for always sharing your adventures!
Very nice mate!!! Nice setup something innovative !! Hope we have some setup like you here in Singapore…