Architect and BoingBoing reader Greg La Vardera in New Mexico Jersey read the post here yesterday about planned housing communities for amateur astronomy buffs, and wrote in to share word of an interesting project he's working on for a client in New Mexico:
We are building a small private observatory as part of a new house – although housed in a separate structure. Located in New Mexico, very remote, for all the same reasons you describe. Thought your readers might enjoy some of the back ground about designing a small observatory which are elaborated in the second half of this post from my blog.
Link. Snip from the text that accompanies the sketch above:
Working on this design was an education for us. I've always been interested in space and astronomy but never had a telescope. My brother and several friends have good telescopes but nothing that a consumer could not order from a catalog. This was different.
The scope in this case is a precision instrument. It was going to be housed in a 16ft diameter dome with an operating aperture and motor driven base – just like the big boys.
We did not have to design this – it is procured from a company that specializes in their fabrication. But we had to design up to it and support it.
Adjacent to the dome is an equipment room. Here will reside computer equipment and tools and supplies to maintain the instrument. The computers control the tracking of the instrument, as well as manage image acquisition.
You an use an eye-piece with the scope but the primary mode is a high res CCD capturing images and serving them to the operator who is remote. A web based interface allows for control as well as imaging so this is something that can be used where ever you have an internet connection. You do not need to be at the facility.
Previously on BB:
