Just as the front deck has been rebuilt, I had the backyard observatory refurbished. The dome has a zenith pivot table (ZPT) that lets me push the dome off its cylindrical walls in order to give the instruments inside the dome access to the zenith. It’s an imperfect solution, but so is much of life. The old ZPT was ten years old and I had repainted and repaired rotten portions of it several times. It was time for a complete rebuild.
The central pier in the dome was originally built at a time when my largest astrograph was a 6″ Richey-Cretien telescope (the same design as the Hubble, for what it’s worth). Now, with much larger instruments, the pier is too tall to permit optimal use of my instruments. So, I ordered a shorter aluminum pier from the company that makes the mount that I use. I had the work crew cut down the concrete pier at floor level and install the shorter aluminum pier in its place. I think that this is going to allow me to mount both my 10″ RC and 130mm APO astrographs piggyback.
The new zenith pivot table appears below to the left of the dome.
My heavy-duty iOptron mount appears on the new, shorter, pier below.
When I get the counter-weights and all the instruments installed, I’ll post a picture of the final refurbish. I’ve waited almost two years to get the observatory fit for optimal use. Patience pays off.