Astroshed@Sawley

Finishing my build of the Astroshed coincided with the start of Autumn in the UK and the first realistic chance of getting some decent time on the winter constellations. I'd planned to tackle M31, the Andromeda galaxy first but I found myself limited by the high magnification of my Skywatcher 150 Mak. I just couldn't get the framing I was after and soon realised I needed to reduce my focal length, either through a focal reducer for the Mak or just get a smaller scope. My attention turned to Orion, the Hunter. Probably the constellation most people would recognise, with the 3 stars forming his belt,Betelguese (pronounced Beetle_Juice)the large orange star forming his right shoulder, Rigel on his left ankle and of course the Orion Nebula, an object I had enjoyed looking at as a boy through my first pair of binoculars, forming part of Orion's sword. M42 - The Orion Nebula I'd seen some wonderful images of the Orion nebula in many publication and forums ...spec

Anyone thinking about a home observatory should consider one of these conversions. You can be up and running in 1 minute - here's a short video to prove it!. And now I've installed an internet connection I can start to think about remote control and automation :-)

Time to build the Astroshed I don’t know when exactly I knew I needed my Astroshed. Maybe it was borne out of necessity; realising I had more kit than I knew where to put; my old shed being on my to-do list to demolish or I just got fed up of carting everything into the back garden to set-up and breakdown every time there was a solid chance of a clear night. I think it was the fact that, even when I got set up, I couldn’t move easily around the garden without setting of my neighbours security lights. I can remember a particularly frustrating session where this happened, only to be quickly followed with more frustration when the clouds rolled in. There had to be a better way to do this…… Trawling the internet one evening I came across a blog written by an amateur astronomer who had written about the same issues but had done something about it. Further research revealed a plethora of Youtube videos and stories of people converting mundane outbuildings, pre-fab sheds or even buil