Inaugural Society Meeting
© MSASThe photograph shows the inaugural meeting of what was later to become the Mansfield & Sutton Astronomical Society, held at the premisis of S.A. Monk, Mansfield Road, Sutton-In-Ashfield in February 1970.Back Row: Mr William Henshaw (secretary), Mr Gordon Jones (treasurer), Mr K.R. Elliot, Mr Arthur Clayton (committee member), Mr P. Clayton (committee member), Mr David F. Collins (chairman).
Front Row: Mr T. A. Woolrich, Mr P. A. Bell (committee member), Mr Graham W. Shepherd (committee member), Mr Hislopp, Mr W.H. Barnett.
Foundations
© MSASMembers of the society well on the way to completing the digging on the observatory foundations in 1972.The semi-circular trench towards the right side of the picture now forms the foundation-trench for the main observatory dome, whilst the large square hole being excavated in the foreground ultimately became the base for the main 61cm telescope and its pier.
Towards the back of the image the two society members standing on the raised platform are starting to clean up several thousand reclaimed bricks.
Early Brickwork
© MSASThis photograph, taken in the mid 1970's shows the start of the brickwork for the Sherwood Observatory, viewed from the bank looking (roughly) towards east-north-eastThe original doorway is framed centre-right, and the four main pier support beams are clearly evident, though the cubic metre of concrete into which the base of each support is sunk isn't visible in this picture.
Dome Fabrication
© MSASThe photograph shows the main rib-work for the observatory dome being gradually fabricated in-situ.The base of the dome is constructed from two U-shaped girders, manually bent into a semi-circular shape using a large hydraulic trolley-jack, and then welded together to form a circle (with the U-form facing inwards).
The two vertical steel ribs seen in the photograph were then drilled, bolted, and finally welded to the circular base. These two ribs form the edges of the opening aperture, and at this point in the construction are anchored together by a series of lateral ribs.
Dome Fabrication
© MSASThe photograph shows the main rib-work for the observatory dome being gradually fabricated in-situ.Following the installation of the two main supporting ribs, the remainder of the ribs were manually bent to shape, and were again bolted in place fixed to the main dome base, and to appropriate points on the two main ribs.
Dome Fabrication
© MSASMembers of the society well on the way towards hand-fabricating the dome of the Sherwood Observatory.With the completion of the main steel skeletal structure of the dome, work could begin on the outer aluminium skin, each panel of which was painstakingly cut and then bent to shape by hand, drilled, and then hand-rivited to the supprting skeleton.
The slightly raised portion of the dome seen in this photograph is to accommodate the sliding portion of the roof, which opens from the far side of the dome and slides into this raised area.
Inside the Dome
© MSASGordon and Malcom inspect the 61cm Newtonian Reflector telescope housed within the dome at the Sherwood Observatory.The image shows the telescope pretty much as it is today with a couple of small exceptions (the image at the bottom of the page shows the most recent view of the dome and the scope).
The small refractor below the telescope, used as a finderscope, has now gone having been replaced by a second Telrad mount (the Telrad can be seen here mounted in its normal position above the scopes primary mirror cell).
The eyepiece now features an electronic (JMI) focuser, with the cabling for the focuser, along with video and power feed cabling to the eyepiece holder now being fed into the scope through the hole in the center of the Dec angle disc.
The base below the forks is now being painted the same red colour as the edge of the dome wall, while the telescope itself currently being black in colour.
Light Pollution
© MSASOver the years since its inception a lot of things have been redesigned and improved on at the Sherwood Observatory, however as the observatory has matured, so has the local town of Mansfield.The long-exposure photograph shows just how much of a problem light pollution can be close to a reasonable sized town!
As well as all of the observing problems associated with light pollution, of course the other issue is the huge wastage of power (and hence money) going to illuminate nothing but the night sky - if you ever needed a sensible argument for full cut-off lighting here it is!
Thankfully as bad as it looks, in reality the light pollution is a nuisance, but not a major problem since we virtually never need to observe towards the town itself (although full cut-off lighting would still be very nice).
Dome and Moon
© GlenThe photograph, taken by Glen, shows the Observatory at night alongside the moon.The picture is a pair of super-imposed images, one of the moon and one of the observatory.
During the long-exposure picture of the observatory the dome was gradually rotated so that light from inside the dome, shining through the open aperture gives a translucent appearance to the dome itself.
The glow from the light-polluted skies over the nearby town of Mansfield is painfully evident behind the dome.
Sunrise
© P. DingleyThe photograph of the observatory dome was taken on the 15th February 2003, at approximately 07:45 on a particularly chilly morning, with air temperatures of approximately -4° Celsius.The camera is towards the south-east side of the building, looking approximately North-North-West.
Sherwood Observatory
© M. KnowlesThe following image, submitted for the September image of the month by Mr M. Knowles was taken on the 19th September 2006 at 14:40 (2:40PM) using a Fuji Finepix 2.0 A202 camera.The picture is a View of the Sherwood Observatory, taken from the entrance driveway shortly after the annual summer maintenance team had completed repainting the external walls and dome.
