Happy Solstice and the “Sky Shack”
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The winter solstice is here. It is one of the two times a year when the sun reaches its greatest angular distance from the celestial equator, and that happened at 1:35 pm EST today. Here in the Northern Hemisphere it marks the astronomical start of winter and in the Southern Hemisphere, summer. We had 8 hours and 15 minutes of daylight — it gets better from here.
We are all aware of the many holidays that come around the winter solstice. But what about Saturnalia? Saturnalia was a Roman holiday held in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The festivities began the week before the winter solstice and went on for a full month. Er……Happy Solstice!
I got the “sky shack†outside finally. The image to the left shows the window and door sides. The window is low but on purpose; I can put my laptop on the fold-down table (below right) and turn it so I can see the screen from the scope, this should allow me to get a rough focus. After that I can fine tune it from the inside.
I have to drill a couple of holes in it yet but that will only take a minute. One hole for cables and the other for a propane feed for the heater – the heater is an indoor safe model, I don’t need to be poisoned. Another thing I need to do tomorrow is put some skids underneath it so: A. I can move it to where I want and being only 4 feet square, it’s pretty light, B. So it doesn’t freeze to the ground after having heat in it, and C: to keep it up off the ground to make shoveling around the door easier.
It’s painted white in an effort to keep it cooler in the summer, the window is also removable. During the winter it may not gain much heat from the Sun, but I won’t be in it during the day and it would quickly lose any heat it might gain.
I may insulate it too, but want to see how it goes without first. If it is too cold I won’t risk the scope anyway; besides, the main goal is to keep the computer above freezing. I will be adding some electrical wiring for the computer and a red lamp so I can keep notes on what I am doing. Not to mention Mary’s suggestion of hot cocoa!
One day I will have an observatory set-up, but not here. I can wait the five years or so it will be before I move. For now this will should suffice nicely.
Wow,good job bro!!!
Hey cool! Warm, portable and with hot coco. What more could you want? Perhaps some biscuits.
Soooooo CUTE…….lol..lol..lol…..
Well Tom…you have a nice place there….
I think….
The Land O’ Lakes .Cooa is the best…
Either Cherry Chocolate or Mint Chocolate.
my favorite…I am very happy you enjoyed my suggestion…..
You stay warm..and cozy.. to.keep the blog with high standard pics..
May I place that special request for deep sky objects
pics……. lol…lol..lol…
Really…have alot of fun
I will be right here with ya………..
just where r u at exactly? Today is special to me cuz its my birthday and the whole world celebrates! ha ha Keep up the good work… love the pictures of the moon that you have. Wish I had a way to take shots of the full moon over Lake Smith here in Va.
Would love a shot of the Saggitarius. I can never find it in the summertime
Thanks. Send me an email if u can would greatly appreciate it tazmom6@yahoo.com
White also doesn’t lose heat as fast at night.
It looks like a really good idea. I like it!
Nice Job, should be fun. Happy Solstice, we got a little over 5+ hours here, about 50 miles north of Anchorage. Mountains nearby diminsh that somewhat. Today is definately cause to celebrate. Love the website, THANX!
Nice!
[...] It was 23 degrees (- 5 C) and getting colder, the sky was clear for the most part; a good night to try out the new sky shack. I went out early, set the scope up and got all the other parts and pieces of equipment into place. About 5 pm it was dark enough so I turned on the heater and did an alignment. The alignment didn’t go so well, entirely my fault, I knew it, but went with it any way and paid the price later. The alignment may have gone better but I my mind was on the heater. I was anxious to see how well it would work. I had set it to low figuring that would give me the best representation of what it could do. I knew it was working when the window in the shack started to fog up. I walked back into the shack and WOW, it was working great. [...]