My Astro Pics

June 9th ( evening ) - I got rather depressed on Thursday evening. Durham council had been fitting new LED street lights. There's one immediately in front of the house which illuminates the whole front of the property like a high security prison. However, it's the one a little further down the road that's the real problem. That illuminates the whole side of the house and the back garden. This is the view from next to the observatory ( first pic is phone on night settings ). The second is from further up the garden, but taken with a DSLR. It's a 30 second exposure, ISO 100 and f14. It's piercingly bright to the naked eye and casts shadows like the mid day sun. Looking back down the garden from the patio, here's another 30 second image with the whole garden illuminated. On June 10th, I took one end panel back out to the observatory to check on its height compared to the street light. I think the front wall will block the light from the solar system scope, but the end panel is going to be borderline on whether it will block the light for the deep sky scope. The arrow marks the street light location.

June 10th - The day was spent sanding filler and getting a first coat of paint on the three sides that are built so far. The left end and front were in the workshop. As I was running out of space in the workshop, so the other end was propped up in the corridor. I'm about to go out and give them another coat of paint. Once dry, I need to stack them up out of the way, somewhere, so I've got space to work on the rear wall. June 11th - This morning, I gave all three panels a second coat of paint. Next I had to shuffle a few panels and tools around the workshop in order to get the door out. Around 12 inches was cut off the top of the door so it would match the front wall. This also removed one of the hinges which would need relocating. The cladding was pulled off the top door stiffener, so it could be reused on the shorter door. It was nailed back on, reusing the original nails. With the door structure restored, the door was tried into the front wall in order to drill the door hinges. This view actually shows the front wall upside down.

The top hinge was aligned with the hinge line and the top door stiffener, so the screws had a decent amount of wood to grip. I was just about to paint the door when I remembered I needed to fill all the bullet holes, so it was left for the day, with the filler drying. June 12th - Sunday was spent sanding the door, painting and waiting for paint to dry! June 13th - I ordered the aluminium angle roof runners. I spent quite a bit of time moving stuff around too! While stuff was moving, I rescued my astro cameras and solar filters from the cupboard lost behind the roof panels since the shed arrived. With that done, the three remaining wall panels were laid out one by one and cut down to the final rear wall height.

The end that was still in the workshop was then laid flat on the floor and the two off-cuts clamped back together along side the end. The roof wheels were balanced on small blocks in the approximate positions and the roof lower rail laid on top. I took the NEQ6 mount back out to the pier and did some more measuring from floor height to pier and to the top of the mount in the stowed position. These measurements were then drawn onto the end panel. I needed to have a more accurate idea of the scope/mount height for the roof clearance. So the front wall of the roof will be around 16 inches tall, with 4 of those inches fixed. June 14th - Update from Durham Council. After my initial online request that the lights were too bright, the light immediately outside the front of the house has had a small shield fitted. This has made a difference to the front garden and those rooms directly opposite. However, nothing was done about the main offending light. I reported the issue again and a little while later, I got an email from a real person, saying the Operative Team would fit shields.

After the lower rail was trimmed to fit and screwed in place, the upper roof line was marked out and cut with the circular saw, slightly over size. Here's how it looks on the end wall. There's another two inches of height on top of this, from the thickness of the roof panels. It was getting late by the time I'd trimmed and screwed the upper rail into the roof panel, so to finish off, I mixed up some filler and filled all the knot and nail holes. There were a few shakes ( splits ) along the grain on a couple of planks, so I ran some slightly dilute waterproof PVA glue into the cracks.

June 15th - I started by planing the top edge of the opening side. Where there were knots, I used my powerfile until it died. The rest of the day was spent shopping for a replacement, collecting my roof runners, unpacking and filling knot and nail holes. June 16th - At 09:35 this morning, a Durham Council van pulled up next to my offending street light. I'd requested a front and side shield due to the location of the lamp in relation to the house and garden, but there is a gap between the two, which may let some light through in the direction of the obsy. For the rest of the day, I decided to get the roof panels out and give them a coat of bitumen. The roof will have felt on it, but a coat of waterproofing bitumen on the wood was a good secondary defense, especially as I don't know how quickly I will be able to get the felt on after the walls and roof are assembled. June 21st - It's been a slower week on the build front. I was recovering from a weekend away with my military vehicles and got back to building on Tuesday. The other end roof wall was completed, though neither have rollers fitted yet. June 22nd - With the smaller bits out of the way, the long rear wall was cut for the top rail and joined together, then I started to get a cold bring the work to a halt. I took a covid test, but it was just one of those old fasioned sneezy, runny nose colds!!