Welcome to Maple Ridge Observatory.

A new observatory was built during the summer and fall of 1998 after Sandy and I moved to a new house, just outside of the Village of Cambray Ontario. Cambray is approximately 15km N.W. of Lindsay, 90km N.E. of Toronto, Ontario.

Maple Ridge Location
This is a good dark sky location, and I have been very happy with the work that I have done here since moving the equipment to its new home. The old observatory had become quite cramped as more, and larger equipment was installed since it was built in 1981. When we purchased our home it was much easier to use the equipment if an observatory was built at home.  The new observatory was built in the backyard of our rural lot, and has a clear view to the north, east, and south. The house blocks the view of the horizon in the west-northwest, but has not caused any significant problems.

Main Observatory:
The main  observatory was built in 1998, with exterior dimensions of 15' x 10'. The walls measure approximately 7' in height and are constructed from 2"x4" lumber, as are the roof trusses. The walls are anchored to floating concrete slab which is 4" thick. The building is covered in white steel siding, as is the roof.  The roof rolls on steel rollers set in steel channels originally designed to carry large sliding barn doors. Two winches are mounted at the end of the roll out trusses, one pulls the roof off, the other pulls it back again via several pulleys.  

The building is divided into two rooms, one large unheated room 11'x10' for the telescopes, and an insulated 4'x10' warm room at the north end of the structure for the computer and myself. I hope to keep a bit warmer through the winter, and be able to keep the mosquitoes away during the spring and summer.  A 12" sonotube is centered in the large room and a Losmandy equatorial mount is fastened to a steel pipe which is sunk into the concrete filled sonotube.

This provides a very stable mount for the scopes. The Losmandy GM100 mount carries a Meade 30cm SCT telescope and a 10cm Celestron refractor.  The 30cm scope is primarily used for lunar and planetary imaging, but focal reducers can be used for deep sky imaging with this scope.  The 10cm refractor is used as a guide scope and also to image larger area of the sun and moon.  I can also mount cameras or short focus refractors for wide field photography. 

The New Addition:
The main  observatory has been used for close to 9 years, and has served its original purpose very well.  A few years ago I received a 25cm, f5 newtonian reflector and planned to use it for deep sky imaging.  I had tried to switch between this scope and the larger SCT on the main mount, but changing optical tubes was difficult and time consuming when I wanted to use the other scope.  There were also times when I would like to use both scopes which limited the usefulness of the single mount.  The newtonian produces good planetary images, but the reduced light gathering made it more difficult to capture the narrow band planetary images.  The shorter focal length of the newtonian fit will with the DSLR as a deep sky platform.

In the summer of 2006, I started to build a new observatory to the north of the existing building.  It is a smaller roll of roof structure, which was built on a raised platform to raise the scope up which gives a better view of the south while looking over the larger observatory.  This building was built within the frame of the struts which support the roof of the main observatory, and measures approx 8'x7.5' with 4' walls and is built on a deck 4' above the ground level.  The walls are clad in white vinyl siding, and the rood is clad in white steel.  The roof of this building also rolls off to the north, which allows both observatories to operate at the same time.  The 25cm newtonian is mounted on a second GM100 mount and has a 60mm guide scope as well.  

The scopes and camera equipment in the new building are controlled from the warm room in the main observatory through a network.  The observatory computers are networked with the main computer in my home office.

Here are a few pics of the new observatory...

	This photo shows the completed addition and the main observatory building after construction was completed. I still have some minor finish work to complete once the warm weather arrives in April or May..
	This photo shows the inside of the warm room. The CPU is located under the desk and there are 2 shelves for the monitor, books, and keyboard. Hydro and phone lines run underground from the garage into the warm room. There are also two window in this room. One looks out into the observing room, the other looks outside to the north. This allow me to see out to the telescope and will provide some ventilation during the summer. A 1000W electric heater keeps the room at a comfortable 15C, even when it is  -30C outside.
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