I'm certainly not Barney - so I hope you don't mind me intruding. <g>
 
I finished a roll-off roof (split roof design) observatory in my back yard this past year.  I don't have anything on-line so I can't help you that way.  But, there are two sites that I went to again and again and again while I was designing and building my observatory.  So, I hope these can help you.  If you really decide to do it - there are two "must have" books on sheds and outbuildings to get - but I don't have the titles with me.  Let me know if you are interested - and I can send the titles along.  Mine is working really well - I've got a heated control room and a telescope room. I can try to answer any questions you have.  Of course, I believe several others on the list have also built observatories (obviously Barney has <g>) so they will have a lot of good advice too.
 
http://www.seds.org/billa/obs/obslist.html
 
http://www.isomedia.com/homes/cvedeler/observatory/observ.htm
 
-----Original Message-----
From: RLKelm [mailto:rlkelm@attbi.com]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2003 3:18 PM
To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com
Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Advice

Barney,

I hope I am not intruding,  if so please excuse me.

I am sorry that I do not have any suggestions for your problems.

What caught my eye in your note was that you have your own rolling roof observatory.

I have been seriously thinking about trying to build one, somewhere, somehow.  Did you have commercial plans or design your own?  Could you give me any suggestions on where to start?

Thank you very much.

Clear skies!  :)

Rog Kelm

"Barney B." wrote:

After all the fun I had this winter in St George, with my new Nexstar 8I, I decided to reopen my little rolling roof observatory in Salt Lake. Almost 15 years of disuse! The mice and spiders thought the place was all theirs. Everything was exactly as I had left it in June of 1988 with a few exceptions. One, the garbage bags I used to cover everything at the end of a session had completely disintegrated. I mean turned to dust...brown dust. Two, The mice had eaten most of my observing notes and skycharts. Three, the plastic caps that covered the visual back, the finderscope, and the polar alignment scope had shrunk and fallen out, exposing the lenses to a heavy layer of dust and in the case of the C-8, to a spider who crawled inside and spun a big old web. So, I'm looking for someone, hopefully local, experienced in C-8 repair or service to clean the scope. Any suggestions? Secondly, this scope was equipped with a Skysensor "computer". This was Celestron's earliest attempt at a "goto" system and worked fairly well except for a huge periodic error in the drive system that made astrophotography challenging. Anyhow, the Skysensor suffers from the Y2K bug in that it only allows a two digit input for the year.  i.e., 1988 must be input as 88. Is there a corollary date that could be input that would cause it to operate at the proper 21st century sidereal time? Barney B.