After going back and forth on the idea of hosting our astronomy kit from myself (Dave Shave-Wall), Bob Trevan and GingerGeek in Spain or the Canary Islands, we finally decided, for a number of reasons back in the UK, building a new observatory, the IMT3. Since then and after successfully running the observatory for a year and a half, I have moved house again and reinstated the observatory as IMT3b, with a new astronomy observing area for my new 22″ Obsession telescope and of course for friends to bring their setups.
Bob and I have come from building and running the IMT1 & IMT2 back in 2005 and they were homemade domes, this time the observatory would be an off the shelf fully automated observatory. We are all technical geeks and as such this combines the best of two hobbies into one.
History of IMT
August 2005 | Start of IMT1 project |
October 2005 | 24 segments of 2 Domes completed |
March 2006 | Observatory structure completed |
July 2006 | LX200 16″ fitted, First Light |
May 2008 | Paramount ME Upgrade completed |
June 2009 | IMT2 Finished (Dave) |
March 2014 | Paramount ME II with OS 12″ CDK Upgrade completed |
February 2019 | IMT3 Build started (Dave) |
June 2019 | IMT3 Commissioning begins |
June 2020 | IMT4 Ground Broken (Bob) |
September 2020 | IMT3 decommissioned |
November 2020 | IMT3b ground preparation |
February 2021 | New concrete pier constructed |
March 2021 | IMT3b dome erected |
April 2021 | 12" reinstated into new home with Paramount MEII |
December 2021 | IMT3b observing plateau built |