Dave Radosevich has advised me that help that he expected for the observatory roof project has not materialized for various reasons, so we need some help to get this project moving again.  Unfortunately, because it looks like we can’t expect at this point to have the new roof in place by next winter, we need to do some work on the existing roof to improve its chances of making it through another rainy season, so we need help with both the old and the new roof:

For The New Roof:

The plan is to replace the existing roof with a metal structure, similar to what Dave has on the observatory he shares with John Kerns and Jim Hannum, which has been an unqualified success.  Our immediate need is for someone who can produce a plan for the new roof that we could build it from – if anyone out there has experience in designing or evaluating metal-framed structures in particular, we could really use your help. 

Once we have that, we’ll need help getting the materials and doing the actual building.  If anyone out there has experience with any aspect of building metal-framed structures, your expertise during this phase of the project, in particular, would be very much appreciated, though I expect that there’ll be a lot of work for folks with other skills, as well.  Among other things, we’ll need to disassemble the old roof after the new roof is ready, and before we even start putting the new roof in place, we’ll need to rebuild the support structure on the north side of the observatory, which is in very poor condition.

If you can help out in any of these areas, please let me know.

For The Old Roof:

We need to do at least enough renovation to the old roof to make the outer surfaces weathertight.  This will require a lot of re-nailing, patching and possibly some replacement of damaged wood, wire brushing or otherwise preparing the exterior surfaces for painting, and getting a couple coats of paint on the exterior surfaces. 

As mentioned above, the supports on the north side of the observatory need a lot of attention, too, and this may be the appropriate time to replace the most damaged components.

If you can help out with this work on the old roof, please let me know.  Even though it’s the day of the Starbecue, I’d like to get started on the work to preserve the old roof at the August star party, though, if anyone wants to get going on the work before then, I’d be delighted!  If we have an early start to the rainy season this year, we may only have a couple of star parties to get this work done before we’re contending with rain again.

Thanks for your help!

Barbara Toy

Observatory Custodian

btoy@cox.net; 714/606-1825