The name of the observatory comes from the local neighbourhood, which is called “drogenberg’ or “dry hill”. It’s a hamlet of Meldert, a village in the Hoegaarden community.
The construction was started July 1th 2022.
My home location offers mostly trees and houses, leaving only a small patch of sky visible. Also it’s surrounded with street lights.
The only manner to overcome this situation was to go in height, overlooking everything and offering a mostly clear horizon, in addition in the shadow from street lightning.
The observatory was built on top of – and on the south side of – the old horse stable, of the former farm (righthand building in the picture above, still without observatory at the time of the picture).
This is a seperate unheated building. The observatory’s shape will resemble a rooftop ‘dormer’ without windows . The resulting height of the observatory’s wall is 7 meters above ground level.
South wall of the original structure. This is the attic floor, with a south facing wall about 7 meters in height.
A pillar from ground level upwards would stand in the room below the observatory floor, on ground-level. This was not acceptable.
Since it was not possible to build a pillar from the ground level upwards to the observatory, an alternative vibration-free foundation was required; The mount pillars are build on top of this concrete slab (about 2 ton in weight). A steel beam construction holds the concrete slab in place between the walls.
Above the steel beam (which holds the concrete foundation slab), the wooden floor support beams are visible which carry the second floor, or walking “false” floor, for the observatory itself. These beams are independently resting on the wall on one side, and the attic floor on the other side. There is no connection between the telescope slab, and the wooden walking floor. They both rest on the same walls, but these do not transfer vibrations enough. to be problematic, even for photography.
