With winter approaching, I wanted to take a window of opportunity of what might be our last nice week of the year to move some of the heavy equipment into the observatory before snow makes it impossible. The first step was moving the telescope and mounting system. Again, Lous Cyr came out with his forklift to make the job possible (each of the crates weighs at least 400-500 pounds).
The telescope and mount moved into the rectangular room of the observatory. I’d later use a winch and strategically placed pulleys to pull these crates into the area in the octagonal section of the observatory where I will be storing them until they are hoisted up into the dome.
Now, it was time to tackle the huge shipment of parts for the dome, hauling them piece by piece into the shelter of the observatory building so that if the weather is reasonably good, they can still be installed even if there is snow outside.
As the dome is fully automated and computer controllable, there are a lot of additional parts and components to make it all happen.
Here are the crates for the telescope and mount, as well as the lower shutter and various hardware pieces for the dome.
This is the upper shutter for the dome, as well as the vertical skirt. The orange strips are contactor bars to carry power to the part of the dome that rotates.
This is what the individual wedge pieces that make up the dome look like, as well as the lower ring that everything sits on, in the background.
