During one of the regular "engineering" nights, I finally had the opportunity to try the classic "transparent dome" trick. Just as the old panoramic cameras used to take photos by slowly exposing a different part of the scene to the camera (allowing some people to be in the same photo more than once!), the trick here is to rotate the dome during a time exposure. I put the fluorescent lights on inside the dome, and pointed the open shutter to the north. The camera was positioned outside looking west, and then a time exposure started. I dashed inside, rotated the dome all the way to the south via the east, then back again (thereby not annoying any of our neighbour telescopes with UKIRT's impersonation of a lighthouse), and returned outside to terminate the exposure. In the meantime, the almost full moon had helped illuminate the surrounding scene. Simple, huh?

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Last Modification Date 1998/07/28