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The facilities are on a 10 acre tract of land surrounded by State and
Federal Forest Land. They include the telescope building and the control
building.
General
There are three computers linked together as a peer-to-peer network
system. The main, or command computer located in the control room, is
called the "Bridge". This one is a Gateway P-5/166. In the telescope
dome room are two additional computers, both clone 486/66. These
computers are called the ICC and the TCC (Instrument Control Computer, and
Telescope Control Computer, respectively).
The Bridge communicates separately to the ICC and the TCC via fiber
optic serial port links. The ICC and TCC also communicate with each other
over a short 24 inch long serial port connection. Additionally, there is
a 10Mb/sec Ethernet fiber optics link that transmits CCD frames rapidly down
to the Bridge in the control room.
Telescope Building
The telescope is mounted on a 30 foot high pier sunk onto bedrock
and rising some twenty four feet above the ground. This pier is 30 X 40
inches, made of concrete block, and is filed with rebar rods and concrete.
The telescope is attached to this on top of the pier. The telescope
building is constructed of 2 X 6 stud material, sheathed with vertical
running ribbed metal covering, and is without insulation. The building
dimensions are a cube of 24 feet. The actual observing floor is 20 feet
above ground.
The dome is an aluminum 14 foot diameter structure redesigned from a silo
(farm, that is) dome. It has two motor-driven transverse shutters. The
dome is rotated by means of a "drive" ring clamped between two 3 inch
diameter grooved wheels, one steel (the idler wheel) and one hard rubber
( the driver wheel). The drive motor is a computer controlled reversible
AC gear motor. A hand railed catwalk surrounds the dome affording safety
when removing snow, or just showing the night sky to visitors. A steel
stairway leads both to the telescope room and this catwalk.
Control Building
The "Control Building" is pretty much the nerve center of the observatory.
Besides the telescope control room itself, there is a library/office,
a dark room, a snack bar area, blackout sleeping room with twin beds and full
bath, machine shop and an electronics work area. A 35 year PASP library as well
as other journals and catalogs are available in the library.
The building is located some 100 feet north of the telescope building.
All aspects of the observatory are operated from the control room. The Bridge
computer is connected to each of the two dome room computers (TCC and ICC)
by duplex fiber optic cables as mentioned above. Lightning storms are frequently
a problem in the late summer time in Flagstaff. The fiber connections minimize
the hazard to all computers that could occur with copper cable connections.
A television camera provides the Bridge console with a view of the
telescope room, while a intercom transmits room sounds from the dome so the
operator can always see and hear whats going on there. Additionally, an
intensified TV field acquisition camera in the telescope topbox provides the
operator with the telescope's field of view on an 8 X 10 arc minute field.
Finally,the ICC and the TCC both have their separate display at the Bridge
console. All together, there are five monitors in the console providing
information on the system operation.
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