Building a Roll-Off Roof Observatory A Complete Guide for Design and
Almost every practical astronomer who takes the pursuit to its second level aspires to a fixed, permanent housing for his telescope, permitting its rapid and comfortable use and avoiding hours of setting-up time for each observing session. A roll-off roof
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Building a Roll-Off Roof Observatory A Complete Guide for Design and Construction
Patrick Moore’s
Practical Astronomy Series
Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series
For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/3192
Building a Roll-Off Roof Observatory
A Complete Guide for Design and Construction John Hicks
John Hicks Ontario Canada [email protected] Full-size print copies of the plans are available. Please contact author directly
ISBN: 978-0-387-76603-4 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-76611-9 DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-76611-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930762 © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
This book is dedicated to my wife, Lorraine, who has endured my pre-occupation with the design of observatory structures and the countless hours required to produce the drawings and details exhibited in this work. She is also to be credited with her patience in my study of the sun, the many hours I spend at the telescope photographing it, and the never-ending acquisition of expensive scientific equipment to look ever further into the face of our star.
Preface
Building a Roll-Off Roof Observatory has required several years in all to write, redrafting many diagrams and descriptions to arrive at the most practical and universal model illustrated in this book. At various stages, it was delayed for want of more information on existing observatories and at others carried forward again by a rush of newfound techniques. The backbone of observatory performance was always the roll-off mechanism, namely, the perfect caster and caster rail combination. There are a multitude of designs invented to achieve the same result, but only a few good ones, which consumed most of my research effort. Also, all things considered, no one writes a technical book on his own, and at various stages I happily reflect on the people who inspired me to undertake this work. My beginnings in astronomy were unquestionably launched by the Royal Astronomical Society, Toronto Centre, almost 20 years ago, whose extraordinary enthusiasm for astrophotography and observatory building swept me up into a new pursuit. As years went on, attending the annual −Starfest− astronomy convention hosted by the North York Astronomical Association, and the Huro
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