3,2 Meter Slit Dome (Automatic)

In November 2023, a 3.2-meter slit dome from Baader Planetarium (BP) was installed on our house in La Palma, near Tijarafe, at an altitude of 760 meters. BP flawlessly organized the entire transport of the dome components and telescopes to the Canary Islands.

The BP dome team proved to be extremely professional, and within three days, the dome was fully operational. All dome segments were meticulously sealed, the smooth running of the azimuth rollers was perfectly adjusted, and a steel pier was installed for the later mounting of the telescope.

The included weather station enables automatic closure of the slit in case of rain or strong wind via the sophisticated dome control system—a crucial feature for operating a remote observatory.

A week later, the BP telescope team arrived to install a GM3000 mount with a CDK-17 / DeltaRho350 telescope and a BP MultiPort Switch with a BACHES spectrograph, which is manufactured by BP itself. Everything ran smoothly, and on a clear night, we were able to create a pointing model with 40 stars using plate solving.

Since then, I have been operating the observatory predominantly remotely from Germany using my self-developed observatory software, "AstroLab." During the implementation of the dome control via TCP-IP, I received extensive support from BP’s software specialists.

In summary, I am extremely satisfied with BP’s service and the quality of the delivered hardware. I am already considering acquiring another BP dome for a future project.
Thomas Rose