Word: dome
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Students hoping for a prime view of Halley's comet this fall may have seen their hopes dashed Friday, when the mechanical dome protecting Harvard's Michaels telescope malfunctioned and put the instrument out of commission for at least a week...
...dome, which opens and closes mechanically to protect the large telescope in the roof of the Science Center, apparently short-circuited while a group of students were preparing to see the comet. The comet, which was highly visible last week, will not be as easily observed until it moves into prime position next spring...
Faculty telescope director David W. Latham, lecturer on astronomy, speculated that a "pilot error" caused the short circuit, which exposed the observatory to two hours of rain. The water caused no damage to the telescope or to the dome, which was closed manually early Saturday, said study telescope director Windsor A. Morgan...
...sculptors have been exploring its expressive possibilities. The artist who calls herself Chryssa has used neon in major pieces since the 1960s. Last year Artist Stephen Antonakos created two monumental 96-ft. by 12-ft. abstract neon walls of apple green, red-orange, pink and blues inside the Tacoma Dome, a sports arena. Artist Joe Augusta, who is also a tube bender, shapes masklike faces like Elvis Machine in startling colors, and Los Angeles Artist Eric Zimmerman made a playful neon birthday cake for the city's 1981 bicentennial. "Neon is the strongest, most direct form of illustration," argued Artist...
Some 400 miles to the southeast, atop snow-covered Mount Palomar, Eugene Shoemaker, a geologist on leave from the U.S. Geological Survey, and his wife Carolyn, an asteroid astronomer, scurry around the unheated dome of the 18- in. Schmidt telescope. They photograph the sky in four-minute exposures, hunting for fast-moving objects against the background of the fixed stars. So far their Palomar study has identified 25 asteroids that cross the earth's orbit, bringing the known total to 60. Asteroids like this, they think, have occasionally crashed into the earth with catastrophic consequences, and they strive to calculate...