In order to facilitate relatively quick construction, it was decided to purchase all off-the-shelf hardware and software packages required for remote operation of the observatory.
The observatory was originally intended to reside on top of what was then the WIS Solar Tower, at the eastern part of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s campus. A major concern was the stability of the building to vibrations, that might interfere with astronomical observations.
Tests conducted using a portable telescope and a video camera showed that the former Solar Tower indeed suffers high-amplitude, low frequency vibrations due to wind gusts. Thus, that location had to be abandoned, in favor of a more stable one – the heavy concrete-walled service tower of the Koffler Accelerator.
The design, procurement, construction and integration began at the end of September, 2009. The dome arrived in October, 2010. It was dismantled in the factory to fit into a container and then reassembled at the bottom of the Koffler Accelerator service tower. On a cold, winter day the constructed dome was lifted by a crane and placed on top of the tower, thus forming the new observatory structure.
View photographs of the event in our Photo Gallery.