A lot has happened at the observatory since the construction phase was
completed in July of 2002. It's all been a matter of incremental improvement,
though, rather than any giant leaps for mankind.
Right about the exact same time as the construction was finishing up,
the observatory's major telescope, an
Astro-Optik Hypergraph, was delivered.
This telescope, which is a Ritchey-Chretien design, rides on an
Astro-Physics 1200GTO mount.
A couple of years later, a Paramount ME telescope mount was purchased from
Software Bisque. The intent is to interchange several different optical
systems on this mount.
Both of these mounts now sit on heavy welded piers constructed by a local
welder. The piers are made of 10" diameter steel pipe with 1/2" (1.25 cm)
walls, which are filled with ground-up slag from an old copper mine;
they each weigh an estimated 800 lb (360 kg).
Somewhere along the line, during the construction, the 40-acre (16 hectare)
property was enclosed by a barb-wire fence and a pair of 16-foot (5 meter)
gates. For those who remember (you know who you are): building a mile of
fence in the desert is a lot easier than building
any length of
fence in the Wisconsin woods!
The roof is
now motorized; it rolls with the aid of a 10-hp reversible electric
motor. That drives a gearing system that pulls a roller chain that is
attached to the roof; the roof carries limit switches to tell the motor
when to stop in each direction. All of this mechanism is located inside the
building, so there is nothing external exposed to the elements.
The installation was quite a process -- we spent 14 straight hours on a
July afternoon in 2003 doing the job with an electrician, a welder, and
two helpers. We weren't ready to test until after dark, and, of course,
the roof stalled halfway open. This being the middle of the monsoon
season, it then, of course, started to rain. So we spent a half-hour, with rain
coming into the open building, adjusting the roof mechanism and finally
getting the roof to close. The rain promptly stopped, so we gave the
roof a final full-on open/close test and declared victory.
The unique thing about the rolling roof is that there are electrical lines
in the roof for lighting and for powering the hoist that moves heavy gear
between the observing floor and the basement. The electrification is done
with the aid of an Igus E-Chain, essentially a large plastic roller chain
that is hollow inside;
two electrical cables run inside the chain, which pays out as the roof
rolls off the building and retracts as the roof rolls closed.
A Tough-Shed was purchased to serve as a wellhouse; it also houses the
transfer switch and breaker panel for a Generac Guardian generator. As
the years go by, power outages seem to be less frequent than they used to
be, but the generator is there so the roof can be closed even if the
approaching thunderstorm knocks out the utility company power.
A heat pump was installed for climate control. Left to its own devices,
the winter temperature in the basement is 54 degrees F (12 C).
The summer temperature is normally 81 degrees F (27 C), though it can hit 82
during hot spells. So the heat pump doesn't have a hugely difficult task,
though it works pretty hard during the winter for the first couple of days
after I arrive -- it has to heat everything in the basement, including the
concrete block walls, to around 70 degrees F (21 C). Once there, it maintains
that temperature pretty easily.
The thermostat for this setup communicates with the heat pump controls
over a 3-wire digital serial bus. There's an RS-232 computer serial-port
interface wired into the setup, so I could control the heat pump over the
Internet with a bit of software work, if necessary.
After having a difficult time carrying the dishwasher down the stairs,
we quickly
decided that this plan was Just Not Working Well, especially since that
was the lightest and smallest unit. So I called in the boom crane
that served us so well during the building construction. The rolloff
roof came in handy -- we rolled it back, picked up the appliances,
and lowered them down the stairwell to the basement.
This same procedure worked out well for the 2,500 lb (1150 kg) of metal
library shelving that holds the observatory's book and magazine collection.
I had it all delivered by motor freight directly to the business that
had the boom crane; they brought it out and delivered it directly to the
basement floor.
The observatory basement has a rack which holds the computers and network
gear; one of those computers serves the BRO web site and the blog you're
reading now. There is a gigabit fiber-optic cable running upstairs to
the observing level; more network gear up there connects the telescope
mounts and CCD cameras to the computer in the basement that drives them.
This means that the scopes can be operated from the climate-controlled
basement with the lights on and the refrigerator within handy reach!
(This has vastly increased the hours-of-use of the scopes ...)
After designing some adapters and making the acquaintance of a couple of
good machinists, cameras can now be attached to the telescopes. Some
images have been taken, and the results
look good.
Slowly but surely, activity at BRO is shifting from the manufacturing side
to the operational side.
