PLEASANT RIDGE

           OBSERVATORY

Hello,    Welcome to the website of Lee Cole .  I can be reached at  PleasantRidgeObservatories@gmail.com      

             The restoration on the  20 inch f5 Newtonian Sollee telescope is finished for the most part . The star testing results are

unbelievable. Many of the former design problems have been solved and lots of new whistles and bells have been added.This

should make viewing much more convenient. In addition to the scope transformation the photometer  has also been modifed

and has its own deticated lap top for recording data. The ccd camera currently being used is a Mintron-62V1N fed to a flat

screen plasma for casual viewing and imaging is recorded  throught the my pc and stored in a external hard drive.          

The software for planning observing sessions I use is Stellarium ,it can be down loaded at http://www.stellarium.org/

for Free. The program I use for color Imaging is GIMP it can be downloaded free at www.gimp.org . The GIMP program cannot

handle  FITS files effectively ,so to produce a color image you need to saving them in TIFF or JPEG files in DS9 or Iris .The ds9.

solfware can be downloaded from http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/ .The best part of DS9 is the Blinking object  area of the

program .Blinking diferent images helps identifiy supernovae,asteroids,and other objects in movement across the sky  or that vary in brightness. 

          The scope is currently mounted on a heavy steel plate with casters on it in my studio while it awaits the  restoration  of the 5.0 Meter Observa-Dome ,see it at www.observa-dome.com   The primary objective of this web site is to post photos of the construction prossess of the 5.0 meter dome. The dome like the telescope had set unused for some 20+ years ,many of

the parts are badly rusted or missing . I have srarted the restoration process on the metal parts and will post the progress

on this site as they are avalable. Any MAS members who would like to help in this proccess let me know at the next meeting

and I will send out a e-mail on work day dates.  The Memphis Astronomical Society web site is at www.memphisastro.com..

 For sometime I have looked for other scopes like this one and have found a link to these photos .They are scattered about in

several file groups at . http://al-paslow.smugmug.com/   The construction of the foundation is concrete floor with block wall filled

with concrete and rebar steel. The door is steel on steel frame for added security. The thought was to go green on power but

that has changed I will run power out to the dome from my house. The dome site is located in the back field behind my home In

Arlingtion Tn.

This is a shot of the MAS 20' f5 with new paint and new parts in my studio, note the finder scope is a C-8 riding on top ,there is also a green laser finder near the eyepiece to keep ladder climbing to a minimum.

These photo's are of the very rusty iron frame and dented aluminum shell parts of the 5 meter dome as they were when I received them . Several parts are missing or broken,

I am currently sandblasting and painting each piece and making a new motor drive

system to open and close the shutter door and also rotate the dome from a desktop.

  The first photo is  my 10 inch Dob at Mid-south Star Gaze 08 with the Ash dome in the background . I built the Iron stair railing inside and help install the dome at www.RainwaterObservatory.org last year. It's taken over a year to get the rebuilt scope back from the engineers  at www.LCOGT.net and boy was it worth the wait. The scope is awesome a true work of engineering . They had a image of M51 in the screen that would blow your socks off. It has really inspired me to get busy on restoring the 5 meter dome at the Pleasant Ridge Observatory.

This is me trenching some 350 feet from the house to the observatory site. Power and

data conduit is shown lower right . I made a plywood template for the telescope base

for proper alignment with the north star. The NOAA site has a great zip code finder that

will caculate your longitude ,latitude and declination.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/struts/declZipE;jsessionid=4C1DBAEC55FF1174C9C4A17343825375

 Wow the rust is gone and the bent rails are pounded out with a torch and

hammer .The new paint makes these iron lower mounting rings look like new.

 The top photos are how you get wire in the plastic pipe from point A to point B .

You tie a string to a mouse (made from foam) and have a friend (David) stick a

shop vac in the plastic pipe . Once the string is through tie a rope to the end and

pull the rope through .Then the fun begins ,grease up the wire or data cable and

pull it through. I have buried two different plastic pipes  ,one for data and one for

power .The data wire will allow me to send live video from the ccd camera in the scope

 to this web site in the future .