June 15

The OCA Board held a special meeting to review our plans for the observatory as well as one other plan review. It was a standard meeting: everyone showing up by 5 PM for a potluck followed by the meeting at 5:30. The ordinary business agenda was dismissed in order to deal only with the two new observatories.

I have to say that in the previous month or so since the cinder block observatory became available, John and I worked the Board so that their decisions was anti-climactic. John had discussed our plans with three or four of them including the president, at the May astroimagers meeting; I discussed it with two more at the Society for Astronomical Sciences meeting at the end of May. Those people made up more than half the Board and were probably the most influential.

John and I did a tag team presentation - it was like nothing presented in the six years I have been a Board Trustee. I made the presentation and John was the "color" man - he filled in all the technical design details. Typically these presentations would have some very basic drawings and maybe a photo of the site - usually not more than 3 or 4 overheads. Ours was quite different - 20 detailed Autocad drawings and three photos. It was entitled "John and Tom's Excellent Observatory".

First, let me describe and illustrate the observatory design. Below is the floor plan.
The current structure is divided into two sections: a currently roofed over warm room and the telescope room. The warm room is where we control the telescopes from. We're changing it slightly by dividing the warm room into two smaller rooms. One room will be a common room that will be my control area and also have a flat panel TV and a snack table: microwave, coffee maker, etc. The other room will be my sleeping area. Our telescope room is so large, roughly 18 feet on a side, that John will actually build his control/sleeping area there and there will still be room enough for three telescopes.

We had to address the Board's main concerns: staying within building codes, outside appearance, and line of sight issues. The building codes were not an issue - the existing structure had been inspected and approved - we were simply replacing the originally designed roof. The roll off roof is the largest construction we need to make. It will weigh about 4,000 pounds and be on 10 wheels that will roll along a track on the top of the east and west walls of the observatory, continue above the warm room roof and beyond for an additional five feet as shown below.

The photo shows the proposed roof drawn in and its direction of travel. This photo also shows the lack of any impact of the roof on the line of sight for the potentially most compromised observing pad. The roof peak does not even rise above the ridge line in the distance so there is no sky blockage at all.

The roof is the largest and most difficult fabrication we have to make. It will be made of steel trusses and roofed and sided with aluminum. The design of the two end trusses is shown below.

There will be nine mid-truss assemblies with the design shown below:

The roof assembly will ride on ten wheels, each having a load bearing capacity of 2,500 pounds. The wheels will ride on rails on top of the east and west walls with the rails continuing beyond the north wall by five feet. The rail system for the west wall is shown below. The track rail rests on another beam that sits on top of the wall cap of three plates welded together - the wall top and two side plates welded together and then attached with bolts through the cinder block wall. This rail system is for the west wall - note the flat track rail.
The east wall rail is shown below. Note that the track rail has an angle iron welded in the track to accommodate the V-wheel. The two rails are different because the east rail provides the tracking ability and the west rail has a wide, flat track wheel to allow the roof to expand or contract with temperature changes, preventing any binding, especially important with remote operation.
As I said before these rails will extend over the warm room roof another five feet past the north end of the building. We will construct two posts in concrete bases to support that structure as below:

The presentation to the Board lasted about 45 minutes with over 20 diagrams and photos including the ones above. The had more questison tahn noraml depsite the completeness of the presentation. This observatory is in the center of the property and is visible from all areas and has been an eyesore for many years. They knew we were ready for the challenge and we were prepared by design detail we presented but they still needed to reassure themselves that this eye sore would finally be made into a an attractive, prodcutive observatory.

Based on these presented facts, the Board unanimously approved our plans for the observatory. John and I breathed a sigh of relief and accomplishment - we had been waiting for this moment for five years. Within several days, John and I completed the purchase of the observatory.