This year at the Sci Fi Con, I’ve finally released the clam shell telescope dome I’ve promised for so long. I originally modeled this over four years ago, and while the model worked and I have it in SL, I was never happy with its look, the pivot plates for the shells were far too clunky.
So, about two years ago, I remodeled it and I was much happier with its look, so I went to upload it on the beta grid… and I couldn’t log in! A little research found that the beta grid had not worked since the AWS uplift project. So, I shelved the project waiting for the beta grid be fixed…
Only a couple of weeks ago, I remembered that I still hadn’t uploaded this, and I wanted it for this Con… and couldn’t find the Blender model! A mad search ensued, including searching my backup archives and after about an hour, I realized that it might be on an old USB stick I’d replaced. After another 10 minutes of searching drawers (I never throw out USBs, they end up in the bit bucket drawer) I found the file!
Here’s the closed dome in my garden at home.
The dome is 100% mesh and weighs in at 8 land impact, sized to hold either of the BF telescopes. It has a hatch, purely for decorative purposes (although I might make it avatar-usable at some stage) which will open on touch, and the shells will open on the second touch.
The shells will also open and close on telescope start and stop, which is appropriate for the carbon truss scope. However, if you open the dome manually, the dome will ignore telescope start and stop, which makes sense for the Newtonian. Like other components of the telescope systems, it contains a modifiable notecard to set a channel if you wish to group a number of telescopes and domes together. Just make sure the channel notecards in each group agrees.
You can see and test the dome at my in-world store, at my booth at the 14th Sci Fi Con, or on the marketplace.
Now for the sugar 🙂 If you purchased either the BF Telescope of the BF Carbon Truss Telescope before the start of the Sci Fi Con (before midnight the 17th of May 2022) and you decide to purchase a dome, send me a notecard with your login name and the transaction detail of your dome purchase, and I’ll give send you a 50% refund!
As with all my products, there’s a lifetime FREE update promise, and be certain to contact me via any of the support methods if you have an issue.