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After months of delays due to confusion over possible site locations for the observatory, the concrete base was cast in late June at the top end of Holywell Park on campus. The base has been designed to accommodate the 3.5M diameter observatory, acquired from Sirius, a specialist company based in Australia. A Meade 16” reflecting telescope has been purchased from the USA and will sit in the observatory on a dedicated pier mount situated in the centre of the observatory. The pier mount is mounted on a concrete base 0.7m x 0.7m square x 1.5m deep which has a 15mm gap separating it from the observatory base to minimise any vibration transfer. Provision has been made with the size of the concrete base to accommodate a portable 8” Meade reflecting telescope that the department has purchased for optical observations. When commissioned the 16” telescope will find it own position by GPS and then via a computer with powerful software already acquired, the telescope will track an object in the sky, and control the observatory dome to move around with it, and control the dome shutter system to suit. Images will be built up over several hours of the object with a CCD camera fixed to the telescope optics and saved onto the computer for image manipulation. Provision of space has been made on the site to position a radio telescope in the future.
There is also an exciting prospect of the rest of the site being developed to include a weather station (Geography dept.) and a photovoltaic array matrix (CREST), with a control room to incorporate all three measurement systems.
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