[pmrid (Peter)]

Well all you happy punters, as Martin Luth King once said "I have been to the mountain top" and had a vision. Here are some pics. The base is 1500mm high and 3700mm in overall diameter. It has a 3-element upper rail suporting horizontal and vertical rollers. The half dozen vertical structural ribs are 35mm angle iron - some welded and some bolted to the top rails. There was a bit too much growth inside to see the bottom rail but these verticals are obviously either bolted or welded to it AND it can be expected to be somewhat rusted.
The outer skin is a small profile corrogated iron or similar screwed to the top and bottom rails. There is a guy 2 doors down with a crane truck so we will probably be able to lift the base up high enough to be able to work on it - sit it on blocks or some such.

It seems to me that disassembly is the only way to go with this. It would require a little bit of oxy work I suspect but the beauty of steel is that can be cut can also be welded. And the outer skin would have to be unscrewed. Some screws are abit rusty and would have to be drilled out.

The top and bottom rails would be transportable if the skin was taken off and they were put in a rough cradle on about a 30 degree angle so we wouldn't need a wide load or any special traffic control permits etc.

The dome itself is a faily thin fibreglass skin over ain internal ply skin with light steel framing for the opening. The door needs reframing and the remainder of the fold-away roof section needs a new frame and skin.

The skirt at the bottom is too thin to take any real weight and so it the upper skin really. The only way we could move it would be to cut it in half along the zipper line I have shown in one of the attached photos. To reassemble would not really be a huge task at all. We would need to fabricate a connecting plate to join the two halves, srew it togehter firmly and then fibreglass over it. All very do-able.

The dome has an outer diameter of about 4000-4200mm. I forgot to measure it accurately but that would be pretty close. So it would probably need a tray truck to move. I wouldn't get it on my ute.

BUT, and here's the rub: we would need volunteers to put in a 5 metre slab to sit it on, disasseble and move and reassemble the thing and also to attend to the necessary refurbisment.

SO, this is a general call for expressions of willingness to lend a hand and kick in to cover some of the costs of the slab etc.

Form an orderly queue, don't push and shove; but do let me know reasonably soon. The thing is that I don't need another observatory for my own use but am happy to make space and faciltities available to the group if you would like to have a bit of a home. It's really up to you to say whther this is something you want.

Peter.