Mission Control

When my mom heard I was going to purchase an observatory she asked,” What are you going to do with it? Go into space." After some thought I came up with an answer.

When I observe with a telescope, it’s like traveling into deep space. Correction...without going into details, it's more like going back in time. The images gathered with the CCD camera provide a first hand view of distant galaxies, nebula, star clusters, and a vast array of strange and exotic stellar delights. It’s like being an astronaut capable of traveling the speed of light, all from the comfort of my living room chair.

Speaking of my living room, I installed a solid maple slab into one of the logs in my home. The maple slab came from Osaka. I trimmed, planed, and put a finished coat on it. The log was chiseled to fit the maple desk. The fit was tight enough to allow the desk to float instead of adding legs.

 

The area will have two computers installed. One computer will operate the dome shutter and rotation, telescope mount, CCD camera, heaters for the shutter and rotator motors, dew control heaters, focuser, webcam, autoguider, camera rotator, filter wheel, AC/ DC outlets, dome lights, humidifier, rain and wind speed detectors, cloud monitor and an assortment of astronomy software. The other computer is for image processing only. I named the work space, “Mission Control.” So, “Yes, I am going into space, sort of.”      George