Finishing up the Heated Control Room area of the Observatory.
The heated control room was built in August 2010, after completion of dome construction. This control room was planned allowing a warm area from which to operate the telescopes during the very cold New England winters. The best time of year for astrophotography here in New England is during the Fall and Winter months when the sky transparency is at its best.
The interior work in the control room was started in April 2011. As of August 2011 the interior finish work is complete. I will be posting a video tour of the interior of the observatory to this section very soon along with some more current photographs.
Some features I added to the control room include ability to live video conference, phone, cable tv, security cameras, bookshelf, storage areas, and some cosmetic accessories to give it a home office feel. In near future, I will be setting up small fridge and coffee maker. The walls are insulated with both spray foam and fiberglass insulation. I put an indoor/outdoor carpet down, with extra decorative rug ontop to add to floor insulation. The room is approximately 7ft by 8ft, comfortable for 2 to 3 people to sit. The exterior door was custom built with insulated core. Pine tongue and groove was used to finish the interior. The roof is white steel siding to reflect the heat gain from the sun. I can heat the area using small ceramic heater on low setting to 60F to 70F when temps outside are near zero farenheit. I will post some current pictures here soon.
The laptop computer has been switched out for one of my custom built full tower computers. Some shelving adjustments are being made to better accomodate this full tower computer. This computer runs an overclocked I7 processor, 6 gigs OC’d memory, dual redundant Terabyte class hard drives, 2 gig Nvidia Video card, 750 watt power supply, and V10 Thermaltake heatsink, all air cooled in HAF full tower case.
