Fiber-optic gyro location of dome azimuth

The 2.1-m Otto Struve Telescope, world's second largest in 1939, today has modern motion control and superb tracking, yet the 19-m-diameter Art Deco dome has resisted many attempts to record its azimuth electronically. Demonstrated in January 2016, a small tactical-grade fiber-optic gyro located anywhere on the rotating structure, aided by a few fiducial points to zero gyro drift, adequately locates the azimuth. The cost of a gyro is practically independent of dome size, offering an economical solution for large domes that cannot be easily encoded with conventional systems. The 100-Hz sampling is capable of revealing anomalies in the rotation rate, valuable for preventive maintenance on any dome. I describe software methods and time series analysis to integrate angular velocity to dome azimuth; transformation of telescope hour angle and declination into required dome azimuth, using a formula that accounts for a cross-axis mount inside an offset dome; and test results. (C) The Authors.