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The College
of Southern Idaho (CSI) in Twin Falls, has been planning
a major expansion of the
Herrett Center for Arts and Science for many years. The
Herrett Center purpose is to collect, preserve, interpret,
and exhibit artifacts and natural history specimens with an
emphasis on the prehistoric American Continent. The Herrett
Center also supports the Faulkner
Planetarium and several art galleries.
The Faulkner
Planetarium has 144 seats and uses a Digistar Planetarium
projector. Presently, they have several small telescopes and
hold open house star parties at the Center and occasionally
off campus. They have planned the addition of a major observatory
and they want to provide true eyepiece access to the telescope
for people in wheel chairs. They also plan to provide remote
access to the telescope over the Internet.
At the early planning stages, they did not believe they would
have the funding to be able to buy a telescope of the quality
and performance of those provided by DFM Engineering.
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Over the years of planning and fund raising, the cost
of the telescope they were considering from another
vendor escalated until it was the same price as the
DFM telescope. At this point they contacted DFM and
discussed their need for true access to the eyepiece
for people in wheelchairs. This discussion resulted
in DFM Engineering designing and building the Model
ARE-125 Handicapped Optical Relay Assembly that
allows convenient eyepiece access. This assembly was
demonstrated at the 2003 American
Astronomical Society winter meeting in Seattle.
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The fund raising successfully raised sufficient money to
place an order with DFM for a 24-inch
telescope including a number of additional features including:
Remote Controlled Tube Cover, Remote Internet Access Software,
GPS time system, the ARE-125
Handicapped Optical Relay Assembly, 8-Position
Filter Wheel with filters,
local and remote displays and keyboards, and mounting rings
for a customer furnished Maksutov auxiliary telescope.
DFM Engineering personnel are working with the observatory
architects and engineers to design the observatory, pier,
control room, and handicapped access. DFM has worked with
architects on many observatories and has worked up an extensive
set of notes to assist the proper design
of observatories. DFM provides more than just a telescope,
we provide advice based upon decades of experience, design
services, hardware, and software for the complete observatory.
• CSI
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