Observatory siting issues.

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I am meeting some 'local resistance' over the sheer size and height of a bigger and taller box than the shed's own end gable. My plan to place the observatory in an 'uninhabited' zone requires a taller dome and floor. The ridge of the 45° pitched, shed roof is about 4m high from the general parking area. If I want a near-horizontal view from the intended site I would need to lift the dome to achieve this. The alternative is to bring the footprint forward so allow an eastern view across the front of the shed rather than needing to peer right over the ridge. I would lose northeasterly views but these are not the highest priority.

My 'advisor' is now suggesting a much reduced height of box. Set on bare stilts to support the dome and provide the observer's accommodation. This is considered more desirable than a 3.6m square block of grooved plywood. With the shed's gable end looking rather like a small house, left behind when skyscrapers went up. A tower should be lower than the main body of the house. Not the other way around.

There is a strip of prime real-estate running across the back of the parking area. It mostly houses my existing telescope piers, firewood storage boxes and the car trailer. While open stilts will provide a much lower potential impact, it does bring the dome forwards by enough to raise all the consequences of perspective. The original site would be 4-5 meters further away. Bringing it forwards would increase the observatory's  visual impact considerably. Not that it matters from a visitor point of view. The area is largely hidden except when the 3m tall hedge is at its barest in late winter. Perhaps the ideal situation is to have the front of the box/dome level with the shed gable? And, of only the same overall height. I'd lose a bit of sky to the east but it would be low enough not to offer good seeing anyway.

By adopting stilts there would be no problem with varying ground level. Only the rear would be below normal surface level. An extra couple of feet on the rear stilts would easily solve that problem.

As I was cycling along I had another idea. I could build the dome on the ground and then take it apart for re-building on top of the box as a ready made kit. This might save getting in a machine to lift the whole dome high enough. Though I shall have to talk to my neighbour whose family are in farming. He may know a tame bale-loader driver in the area who is badly in need of beer money.

Access to the back garden is very narrow which limits my [vehicle size] lifting options. Once the observatory is completed and bolted together there will be no need to be drilling new holes. Nor the need to be juggling panels to find the best fit while desperately trying not to drop them all the way down to the ground.

I had a look at grooved, cladding plywood. The cheapest, discount DIY store 12mm was rather featureless. [Though you may like that sort of thing.] Across the road at the 'proper' builder's merchants the price was exactly double and it looked distinctly rough and knotty by comparison. So it's all swings and roundabouts in cladding plywood. I never painted my grooved plywood shed. Preferring the pleasant aging to a dull, matt, grainy brown. It hasn't show any sign of breaking down over the years.

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