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Not too serious at all !
It's status as the oldest surviving scope an as a museum piece is precisely why it will stay right where it is - the observatory's primary role is as a museum and they want to show what the public expects - Ye Olde Bigge Telescope - ie a long white tube on a huge equatorial pier and an eyepiece at the bottom.
Relocating it to dark skies is pointless - the average amateur has better equipment what with encoders, autoguiders, imaging setups and computer integration.
The difference with "observatory class" telescopes is that they're built to last being used all night every night for many decades, which was ok in an era when the technology had changed very little over a century. But these days amateur gear is built to survive being used a few dozen times over a few years, then junked as it will be quickly superseded technologically; the only exception being the optics.
The only thing that puzzles me is why the observatory hasn't built what looks like a big refractor but has an iPad installed where the objective would be, and a small scope inside focussed on the iPad. That way they could spend the night "pointing" it at the sky and showing deep sky objects and shots of the planets from Hubble and the average joe public wouldn't know the difference.
Last edited by Wavytone; 15-06-2015 at 10:42 AM.
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