Franck's Out, Marian's In: The Great Gear Shuffle

Making Room for More Awesome: Welcoming Marian’s Serious Setup to the Observatory!

In a previous post, I was thrilled to welcome Franck Jobard to the observatory after making a bit of space for him. Recently, Franck had to relocate his equipment – but don’t worry, a new collaboration between us is on the horizon, though that’s a story for another time! With his departure, I found myself with an unused pier in the observatory…

Coincidentally, Marian Gutowsky, a fellow astrophotographer and friend, was actively looking for a spot to house his setup! After a few calls, we decided to make it happen! So, allow me to introduce Marian and his impressive rig: an AP155 on an AP1100 mount, a Moravian G4 camera, 50x50 square filters, and a Sky Track 3.0 off-axis guider… in short, some seriously heavy-hitting gear!

To accommodate all this beautiful equipment, we needed to make a few modifications to the second pier. This involved ordering a custom stainless steel mount plate from Didier at Sky Meca, and doing a bit of rewiring:

First up, we cut the existing threaded rods with an angle grinder and prepped a support for the column extension:

Next, we installed the PVC tube (big shoutout to Franck for the donation!):

Then, we filled it with concrete and installed the stainless steel plate:

A little finishing render on the base:

And it’s dry!

New electrical box in place:

Power supplies for the mount and equipment:

And just like that, the beast is in place!

There’s not a ton of room left in the observatory, but no risk of collision between setups, even if it gets a bit cozy sometimes! 😉

With polar alignment complete and all the software configured, Marian was already capturing subs on his very first night in the observatory… Welcome, my friend!