Your neighbor up in WA state.

Hope its either not quite to (outside) scale or it is really bigger on the inside than out though or it’ll be rather cramped.

Woof is right. ‘IFOS’ is shorthand for ‘It’s Full of Stars!’ – a ’2001: A Space Odyssey’ reference. Rather apt, in this case.

As for the footing depth, it depends on where you live. You need to find out how deep the frost line is in your area, and then dig 6 – 12 inches below that to prevent “frost heave”. In my case, the frost line is only 12 inches deep, so I didn’t have to go down very far.

[Hmph, I haven't seen "The Doctor's Wife" and so I didn't know the pool is gone.]

Not to worry; it’s not a major spoiler. (Short version: they find themselves needing extra thrust. If you’ve seen “Logopolis” or “Castrovalva”, you can guess how they get it. “The Doctors’ Wife” is entirely watchable for new viewers, but it has LOT of candy for old fans.) And anyway, the TARDIS interior is reconfigurable; the Doctor can always program up a new one.

Duncan:
Well done, sir. A Tak on an Atlas! Schweet!
Ravell:
It looks like the scope stays indoors until the Tardis is rolled back.
Sam:
Try doing some outreach with kids. That should restore your sense of wonder.

What could be more appropriate than this to cover an honest-to-FSM time machine?
Telescopes -ARE- time machines after all…

http://io9.com/5811584/little-girls-tardis-stolen-from-her-front-yard

Anyway, living in light polluted Calgary (the added proximity to the mountains that can breed MAJOR weather screw-ups notwithstanding) is kind of a drag for this young space fanatic – and while I have managed to identify a very suitable stargazing site south of city limits it’s still over 100 km away, and even there a prominent dome of light to the north easily identified the city’s location. Because of this, plus the facts that a) I still haven’t practiced driving at all, and b) our whole family is VERY hard pressed on time constantly, we’ve only ever been able to go on out-of-city stargazing about once a year, during the summer (for the past few years it’s been around the date of the Perseids, although I’ve never seen the actual shower). This scheme has it’s benefits of course, but it’s drawbacks as well – what I’d give to see the winter sky from such a dark location… But still, last summer’s trip was absolutely amazing – you have know idea how much fun it was being able to see the nebulae in Sagittarius with your naked eye, seeing objects you thought you wouldn’t see with just a cheap 8-inch dob (which hopefully isn’t irreparably damaged after I made the mistake of trying to GENTLY clean its primary with a Swiffer duster), and seeing our galaxy spread across the sky literally clear as day.

Sad thing is that, even though I know all those points of light are suns vastly bigger and brighter than our own, all those dim gaseous wisps are really distant nebulas that are so huge and rich they could form thousands of these suns, and all those fainter ovoid smudges are really cities of stars, often bigger than the one that encompasses the whole night and so much more I can’t see even with magnification; galaxies so utterly far away that I’m seeing them as they were since long before humanity even breathed and could barely reason its way around the simple tool – even though I know all of these things and they’re all hugely awesome facts, I’ve know it since early childhood. I’ve seen all the pictures, and while they’re all very beautiful I’m not truly wowed by them anymore. And it breaks my heart to think that I’ve looked at those real galaxies with my own eyes, but never truly felt even a hint of their real size and existence – they’re just images and mental facts. Like all things, I once felt the wonder and newness of these awesome facts, but now they’re just facts – they no longer impact my soul as they used to. That’s the fear – all the things that were at first unknown and stirred our souls and passions seem to become less impacting and stirring as I learn more about them. I’ve lost the wonder, and I hate that I have. However, it’s probably just because I don’t get outdoors and see the REAL universe that often – all my time is spent reading these blogs and contemplating the universe without really SEEING it. I can say that I felt a pleasantly simple, refreshing joy being able to see what I did and relish in my childhood-and-lifelong love (space and all things related!!), and I want to feel it again as soon as possible