In article , Davoud
wrote:

I'm not very good at spherical geometry, so please bear with me here. I
don't want to go to the expense of controlling the dome's rotation by
computer, but I would like to auto-rotate it. Would it work to simply
install a motorized rotator that would rotate the dome at 15° per hour?

No it wouldn't. Consider the case where you are looking at Polaris for
the simplest counterexample.

Computer control would require that the computer know what RA and Dec
you are tracking. It is probably a lot easier than controlling a
telescope because you can be a lot sloppier. Look into various Dob
drivers such as Mel Bartels', remembering that you only need azimuth.

If you are not taking long astrophotos, you could probably get away
with a variable speed control set by a dial. Check every 5 minutes or
so whether you are going too fast or too slow, and after a while you
will probably get a good feel for what speed you should set it at for a
given point in the sky. For long astrophotos you would likely waste a
few pictures by getting the dome in the FOV before you train yourself.

I don't know what people usually do with domes. I know Palomar had a
mechancial analogue computer for the dome control.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)