East Dome Committee Meeting Minutes
February 15, 2006


A meeting of the FBAC East Dome Committee was held February 15, 2006 at America Buffet in southwest Houston. Attending EDC members were Bill Dillon, Joe Dellinger, and Dennis Borgman.

There were two major topics that were discussed, organizing a clean-up day for the ED, and laying the groundwork for a TO training test.

ED Clean-up Day:
  1. To be held Sunday, March 12, 2006 from 1pm to 6pm.
  2. Clean scope fork arms.
  3. Clean telescope mirror.
  4. Organize all wall postings so they are clear and usable.
  5. Clean under floor and discard junk, organize what needs to be kept.
  6. Complete hand rail cleaning, sanding of rust spots and primering.
  7. Disassemble and completely clean exhaust fan and enclosure.
  8. Vacuum all areas.
  9. Clean all counter surfaces and front edge trim.
  10. Trim any foam filler left from previous work from outside of dome walls.
  11. Finish foam filling places where wasps can get in and nest.


ED Telescope Operator Testing:
Significant discussion was around what would cause a trainee to fail the TO test. We agreed that anything that they missed that endangered themselves, their guests, or the equipment would be grounds for failure. We would also require the trainee to be able to find at least 2 objects, either with or without the Quadrant. We agreed these 2 objects could be anything including a bright star or the moon, they didn't have to be deep sky objects. The objective was to determine if the trainee could handle a public night on their own in a safe way. Should the trainee fail, we would ask that they continue work for a couple more weeks with an experienced TO and than retake the test.

Go do's and commitments were as follows:
Items completed from the ED task list
Progress on open items from the ED task list
No new items were added to the ED task list

Dennis Borgman