Mr Jack, it cannot be, I cannot believe such a ‘discovery’. Basically, almost, domes and telescope only need painting and lubrication. Now that’s a real treasure, other than the one in Louis Stevenson’s novel. I say this because in my association (the former Associazione Astrofili Abruzzesi) things went a little differently: we had built a Newtonian D300 mm F1500 mm. A beautiful telescope equipped with a D100 mm apo astrograph dedicated to the search for asteroids, in collaboration with the state observatory of Collurania (in the town of Teramo).
The instrument was placed on an old medieval tower, Torre De Sterlich, 10 km from our city Pescara in Central Italy. The 20-metre high tower and telescope are in the attached pictures.
One evening, we went there for an observation and found that the telescope had been catapulted from the top of the tower with all its accessories. Astrograph, push-button motors, eyepieces, blackboard and everything else lay on the ground at the foot of the tower. Everything had been destroyed by unknown vandals.
Thus ended the Association.
Any comments are yours.
In any case, congratulations on the preservation of things.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
