BRUCE MILLS-'scope stuff

It's in the wrong place but after years of packing the gear up into a car and travelling to a half decent site nearby to unpack, set up, and then watch the clouds roll in, I'd had enough and thought it was time to try and make the best of a bad site and make use of my backyard. So, early April 2007, I went to the steel stockist and procured a near eight inch diameter steel pipe for a tenner and a steel plate for the top, got it welded up, dug a deep hole under the stone flags of my yard, mixed a cube of concrete and set the tube into it. Aside from the fag of mixing the concrete the hardest part was drilling and tapping the three holes into the three quarter inch black steel plate for the M10 screws to take the al. adaptor plate I'd made for the NJP. These pictures were taken the day after and before I'd got around to tidying up.

You'll note how north lies in these pics and how my east is totally out of sight by the three storeys of my house. Below about 70d. I have only an hour or so west of my meridian and a couple more hours scope beyond that to view in. Plus the baleful loom of a M.way like streetlight only fifty yards away.  

 When I bought The NJP in early 2006, I discovered that they're made for latitudes below 50 degrees north. Not at all handy for northern Europe. After the usual agonies of indecision I set to with a file and took away the portion, roughly outlined in pencil, between the arms that hold the R.A. axis. Below