Monday, April 07, 2008

Observatory sheds

While most people use their garden offices to work in, many also make use of them as leisure buildings. One of the most common bespoke shedlike structures is an observatory, such as the simple one from Taylors Garden Buildings above and the homemade one belonging to Starman below. As he explains:
"The plan was to have the roof slide off on runners, and after a few weeks we were there. The roof itself is tongued-and grooved timber, covered by thick gauge pond liner, a material which is impervious to more or less anything. It runs on thick plastic wheels which fit inside a shallow channel running the total length of walls-plus-runners. The weight of the roof is sufficient to keep the wheels within their channels, but light enough to be moved with one hand. The runners themselves extend out (southward) for a distance about equal to the width of the side walls, so that when the roof is fully slid away, the shed is open to the sky."
Similarly, theLinnhe Observatory below has a roof section mounted on a wooden frame with eight wheels to be rolled backwards on rails away from the shed underneath.Another good site, again with plenty of details of how the build went step by step, is David's Astronomy which also has several other links to observatory builds around the interweb. Here's his own, below.There are even companies who specialise in providing observatory sheds, such as the finely titled Alexanders Observatories who claim to be the UK's leading supplier of quality roll-off observatories. Here's their 10 by 8 in situ.Or you may prefer something which looks like the big boys' observatories: here is Charles Baetsen's lovely model (plans from his site).And here's a similar one from the excellent Gregory La Vardera.

No comments:

Post a Comment