[ATMoB-discuss] Near disasters

[Paul A. Valleli]

Mario,

Glad your optics are OK. Sounds like the dome
shutter, being curved, acted as an air foil, lifted
off like a frisbee, and blew across to the other
side of the house. I had the same thing happen to a
rain shield over our bird feeder. It landed several
hundred yards away in the midst of dense brush.

Early Monday morning, I was listening to the wind
howling like a banshee through our very sturdy white
pines that are now over 60 ft. tall.  The next
morning I found a large Poplar, sheared at the base
from my neighbors property with the upper branches
grazing our back enclosed porch. The fall was broken
against some of the pines so that the upper branches
of the poplar shattered into dozens of small pieces.
Too bad Poplar burns as poorly as box wood. 

I am awaiting news from John Martin or Jeff Lowe how
Stellafane facilities made out. I don't believe Dave
Prowten put hurricane lockdowns on the Ash dome. 
The video camera pointed that way has not been
working for nearly a year.      

---- Original message ----

  Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:35:57 -0400
  From: "Mario E. Motta" <mmotta at massmed.org>
  Subject: [ATMoB-discuss] dome disaster
  To: Atmob-discuss at atmob.org

  >Hello all,
  >
  > Hope you are all surviving this weather. Main
  advantage of living on
  >a hill on a peninsula is relatively dark skies,
  and great steady seeing.
  >Main disadvantage is total exposure to the
  elements when not so good.
  >Yesterday, up part of night due to heavy winds
  howling, sounds like an
  >airplane. 7 am Sunday heard a loud crack... went
  to inspect, and to my
  >horror, saw that my dome shutter door was
  missing. Could not even find
  >it at first, dome is on south side of the house.
  A huge gust of wind
  >ripped it off and hurled it right over the house
  to the North side of
  >the house.
  >After my initial shock and panic, first covered
  the telescope with a
  >cover and tied it up. Then got my son up, who
  luckily was home for the
  >weekend from college. We dragged it into the
  garage, and devised a plan.
  >called a number of neighbors, even our own
  President Virginia Renehan, a
  >town neighbor. All said they would help (great
  neighbors). Since the
  >dome shutter door (14 feet long, 6 feet wide) had
  cracked the sides, I
  >split it into 2 pieces. We then attached ropes,
  and with 6 people above
  >and 2 below with ropes, lived each up from ground
  to deck. Then lifted
  >them onto dome. With someone securing my ladder,
  I then secured the
  >shutter by screwing it onto the dome itself. Took
  2 hours, but weather
  >did give a break for this thankfully. I then
  mopped up the rain water in
  >dome, and had previously pulled out all the
  electronics.
  >Good news is no apparent damage to the telescope.
  (I had fears that 4
  >years of work and many, many hours of work were
  in real danger of total
  >loss!). Spent all day, but.. no damage to scope,
  dome proper, or
  >electronics).
  >Will remake the shutter now, remake the side wood
  work, and the ends.
  >Much of the dome shutter door can be salvaged.
  Looks like the wood that
  >spans the width of the shutter were well secured,
  but.. the wood split.
  >Will remake those parts with Hardwoods, and
  reinforce with aluminum.
  >Will also plan on reinforcing rope ties whenever
  major storm coming. Do
  >not want to go thorough this again ever.
  >I wish to publicly thank Virginia (as well as all
  my neighbors) for
  >their prompt response to my emergency, and saving
  the scope and dome.
  >Hope to be up and running again in 2-3 weeks.
  >And, happy birthday Virginia!
  >
  >Mario
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