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[erikruud]

Sunday was my 17th wedding anniversary. My wife dropped the kids off to spend several days with her parents and we spent most of the weekend on a series of spur of the moment adventures.

Friday afternoon we decided to spend a night in Lake Geneva. We checked into our hotel Friday night and went roaming about the town.

We decided to go tour the observatory on Saturday after we checked out from our room.

It's been said before, but every astronomy fan should take a tour there.



Our tour guide was Richard Dreiser, He is a very good guide and does a fantastic job of explaining things in layman's terms. A very cool part was when he demonstrated how a basic reflecting scope works. He used a make up mirror and a piece of paper to show an image of another guide setting up a telescope outside for a solar projection demonstration. Essentially it was a hand held "Camera Obscura"!

The next part was the solar projection on the south porch.

In addition to explaining the astronomical aspects of the observatory, they explain a lot a lot of the architectural details and symbolism.

This dome house a 24" Reflector. This scope is used for public viewing, but you need to plan ahead to get on the list. They only take 10 people per night.


Inside they have lots of equipment on display.
Spectrograph


Zeiss Ultraviolet Camera


Filar Micrometer


Lots of gear that appears to have been used for the Transit of Venus. The Bushnell reflector was used to demonstrate solar projection.


This dome houses a 40" Reflector.


Some of the architectural details

[erikruud]

Under this 90 foot diameter dome...


Is the 40" Refractor. It is 63 feet long and weighs about 6 tons.






The doors open to provide an 11 foot by 85 foot slot in the roof.


Surrounding the mount, is a 75 foot diameter floor that is essentially the worlds largest elevator. It can be raised as high as the upper cat walk in this picture and lowered about as far from where it is shown in this picture. No need for observing ladders.


This much newer building on the grounds house a 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain and a 7" Schmidt Camera.


I am not sure what this dome contains.


I am going to have to go back some time when I can get in on one of the observing nights.

[erikruud]

Here is a very short clip I got of the floor descending. You can see the counterweights going up.


This clip shows the dome rotating and the scope moving in declination.


Just think, people think Meade ETX drives are noisy.

[Paulie pchris00]

Jun 11, 2012 8:46:31 GMT -6 erikruud said:

I am not sure what this dome contains.

It's Hale's outhouse.

I bet Hubble was too good to use it.

[Paulie pchris00]

That floor fell like the first time it was used. I don't know if it's fallen again since, but you would think the son of an elevator builder would have got it right the first time...

[erikruud]

The floor only fell once, and it was not in use at the time. No one was in the dome when it fell. According to the story on the wall at Yerkes, some astronomers were in making adjustments to the scope. When they left they returned the floor to the main level. I think it said they reported hearing a noise, but nothing happened. Workmen came in the next morning and the floor had collapsed.

[jeremy]

Very nice, thanks for posting. I plan this summer to go and tour myself, it was a gift this Christmas from my brother-in-law. Am wondering if you took your scope and did any viewing around there?

[erikruud]

No scopes on this trip. It was primarily a get away weekend for our anniversary.