Dear Mr. 10,sn-10 寫:There are several drawbacks of having a permant dome, one of which would be temperature, especially in summer.
This was also my concern before building the 15 feet robotic observatory, especially what mounted inside is a 16 inch aperture telescope. Custom wisdom tells that under such high temperature difference it will take a whole night to reach thermal equilibrium.
In fact it is not. My experience tells that in a very hot afternoon the temperature inside the dome is still lower than outside if one keep the slit closed. When evening approaches the temnperarture inside the dome, with its slit opened, quickly arrived at the same as outside. The telescope, given its 16 inches aperture, takes just about 30 minutes to reach full thermal equilibrium, as could be verified by observing the lunar surface and planet through a 300X eyepiece.
Of course A dome is in no way like a glass house. A dome is designed not to trap heat. But to say that a dome has great thermal problem seems to be a little bit unreal.
Best regards
Chan Yuk Lun
