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B. L. Wilson, C. S. Olsen, E. P. Iverson, A. Paget, W. Lifferth (BYU), P. J. Brown (Penn State), J. W. Moody (BYU)
The Lifferth Dome is a pull-off roof designed for small telescopes and other observational equipment. It was specifically designed for the needs of the ROVOR project. The roof itself is completely removed from the observatory housing walls and cranked off to the side below the optical horizon. This is done using two swing arms on either side of the observatory that work in unison to lift the roof off the structure and rotate down and away into a cleared location. The torque is provided by a threaded rod connected to an electric motor at the back of the building. As the motor rotates, the threads turn through a threaded sleeve connected directly to the support arms. Advantages to this design are no lost horizon, no roller surfaces to keep clean, low power and simple limit switches. Operation is by computer control using by National Instruments LabVIEW via the internet. We present its design and construction.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: wilsonbl@email.byu.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.