Z Dome
The "Z" in Z Dome stands for Cora Zemlock who was a long time member of the MAS who donated the money for a mirror
which would become the Zemlock Telescope. This building was constructed to house
that scope. She later left a large endowment fund that has supported the MAS for many years.
The Zemlock reflector was the largest telescope on site. With a 26 inch mirror,
it was built as an f/15, classical Cassegrain telescope with an equatorial fork mount.
Located under a 22 foot diameter dome, this scope was computerized with high resolution encoders
and motor drives which gave it "go to" capability via software.
Briefly it was reconfigured in 2013 to be an f/3.4 prime focus CCD imager.
The building and the dome were built by members of the
society under the management and especially the leadership of
Gerry Samolyk.
In 2015 it was replaced with a Celestron EdgeHD 14
telescope mounted on an Astrophysics GTO900 mount which sat on one of the
forks. The imager is an SBIG model STT-8300. In 2018 the mount was upgraded
to a GTO1600 and a bridge was built so it could be mounted in the center of
the dome.
Control of the dome was also automated in 2018 by installing new motors and hardware that
integrate with TheSkyX software which controls this observatory. Doing so now allows the
dome to automatically rotate in sync to where the telescope is pointed and/or keep up with the Earth's rotation.
This telescope is called the
"G-Scope."
The telescope sits on the second floor and the
first floor contains the club's office, library,
and control rooms.
