Minor Planet

The dome was purchased in 1996 from Astrodomes. Some modifications was done to the original design to allow access to the outside of the dome. Also it was painted green to comply with council wishes. To rotate the dome, a continuous steel chain and sprocket was purchased for connecting the driving reversible AC motor to the dome. This design is unconventional but simple. The steel chain pulled on the dome and rotate it in both direction with no gearing system apart from static friction to the side of the dome. The Dome control software turn on the motor rotation either clockwise or anticlockwise. The same program activate another reversible AC motor located at the zenith of the dome for opening and closing the hatch by means of a rack and pinion arrangements. During a regular observing session, the hatch is left open in one constant position and will be closed upon completion.

On occasion when the computer froze, resetting was done remotely by means of a telephone activated modular device, eliminating the need for someone to come in and  physically resetting the computer. When the ISP was recently changed to allow a new ADSL2+ connection , the changes was done seamlessly this way.

Due to the dark sky in Leura, when the sky transparency was exceptional , this setup was capable of detecting a 20 magnitude point source such as a star or an asteroid with an exposure of about 5 minutes (using C14)

Data transmission to Sydney:
Using ADSL 2+ connection with BigPond we have consistently obtained a connection of 1Mbit/sec upload speed and to a lesser significant was a download speed of 10Mbit/sec. Since the upgrade, the data download and controlling software has been improved dramatically to increase work efficiency by a factor of 8.