THE BUSIN E S S OF ASTRODOME S

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1 THE BUSIN E S S OF ASTRODOME S An observatory dome is a purpose built house for an astronomical telescope. The requirements are to be able to permanently set up the telescope and other relevant equipment. Thus there is no need to set up each night to observe. Domes must be safe to protect the equipment and the astronomer from stray light and wind especially in cold locations. Astrodomes are developed to a very high standard and are the best small observatories available in the world. The proprietor, Col Blumson is manufacturing ASTRODOMES in three sizes and of varying configurations in fibreglass and one 3m size, Kit Model metal observatory domes. Currently the business is located at Yandina on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. Astrodomes manufacture in several sizes metre/ Australian delivery model, an export model and a semisphere model, 4.5 metre with option of door or drop out shutter and 6.5 metre with or with out base and panelling in fibreglass dome and a 3.0 metre diameter Kit Model metal dome. There is also a market for other size models, which can be readily developed... Astrodomes market is already well established around the world, and we believe this has not been exploited. Col however considers he has done as much as his abilities will allow. Astrodomes has an excellent base to develop as a business. It is now up to others to follow these possibilities and opportunities. Col also wishes to develop his other projects, separate from Astrodomes, in the field of woodcarving, his original trade for which he received a Churchill Fellowship in Col has been a Master Woodcarver for over 50 years. How the Busine s s beg an. About 10 years ago, a friend of Col s, Sandy, was bragging to him about how in his early days he made a telescope that the mirror was ground to within a millionth of an inch of accuracy. Col said old Sandy s story was a bit far fetched, as he reckoned Sandy, although a retired gentleman grazier would have a hard time getting a barb wire fence straight. Sandy decided he would take up the challenge and so together they built another telescope. Col was enthralled that Sandy was able to live up to his claims and they produced a fine mirror within a millionth of an inch accurate. Between them they made a very good 10 telescope. Thus Col discovered a need to take up and learn more about stargazing.

2 Col and Sandy went down to the Brisbane Valley to help an Astronomy Club set up an observatory from traditional plans. As a result, Col and another friend took matters into their own hands and designed the original Astrodome. He then decided to put advertisements in the Australian Astronomy magazine to see what sort of response he would receive. The enquiries came in thick and fast. Thus Col registered the business name. Astrodomes won a tender to install 2 domes on Mt Kent near Toowoomba, Queensland. These were for the Queensland and Southern Queensland Universities. At the official opening, all the expert professional astronomers were in attendance and Professor Matheson, who was the Head of the Astronomy of Australia, gave Astrodomes and Col glowing reports on what he had achieved in such a short period of time in this business. This gave great encouragement to proceed with the manufacture. The reputation of Astrodomes has grown dramatically around the world in professional and amateur circles of astronomy and still continues today. Potential The emphasis must be on high quality products and service. This could be achieved by outsourcing all the various parts to manufacture by the best trade to do the particular parts/sections of the work, with the possibility of having manufacturing done overseas as a joint venture, with an added advantage of being able to export from a more competitive port than Australia's current ports. Overseas licensed Manufacturers / Agents are almost essential. With multiple shipping or manufacturing in the home country of agents costs would be reduced. Advertising would be through these Agents to add to the existing small ads in the main astronomy magazines of various languages. Communities with Astronomy societies and word of mouth is basically all that is required to spread the word to this niche market. Due to the large volume of enquiries already being received, increased price competitiveness would enable more of these enquiries to be turned into sales. A new identity/joint venture /partner/ associates, with the right skills would than have that potential to put this plan into action. The aim will be to complete every size and type to be held in stock ready for immediate delivery thus taking away the urgent concern to produce on time which has been a problem to date especially with previous ongoing development. However this development has now been completed.

3 Market analy si s Market research carried out by the proprietors, has revealed that Astrodomes have an excellent reputation with professional and amateur astronomers worldwide, for the quality and design of product produced. With this current reputation coming from its current clientele, Astrodomes is well-positioned for further development to be able to penetrate the amateur market on a larger basis. It would follow if the pricing was more competitive sales would increase. A market of up to $1,500,000 upward would be realistic in annual sales, just from sale of observatories let alone other activities that are aligned to this business. As there are no records on dome usage kept by any public authority, be it by the Australian bureau of statistics or other departments elsewhere in the USA, it is difficult to obtain statistics. However it is possible to see from a survey on the net, just how many observatories there are around the world. The fact that this is not a mass market suggests that serious competition will not be probable if Astrodomes can maintain its current market, maintain the quality of its products and improve its price competitiveness. Marketing strat e gi e s Col believes the best marketing strategy is a combination of advertising through the printed Astronomy magazines worldwide, direct marketing through Universities and Schools and maintaining its excellent number 1 position on Google on the Internet for its products. Through this larger presence and increased share of the dome market sales, we would then expect that the sale of the business to be desired by that right person to carry out the expansion and profitability of Astrodomes. With nearly 2000 enquiries over the last 6 years and around 70 sales in that time, the future has to be strong for Astrodomes. Strength s, Weakn e s s e s, Opportunitie s and Threat s Our greatest strength is that our product is of the highest quality available, known to Col, from anywhere in the world.

4 Astrodomes customers are well-defined with only a small cost to promote to its known market. Col has the technical competence for development and knows how to build a first class product. Currently the lack of management skills in particular and the time and ability to carry out what Col believes is needed to be done is the most crucial weakness. There is no plan for management, except to sell or seek a partner and give what ever it takes to train and advise an incoming venturer /proprietor / manager. The business has been principally dependent on Col, the only person during this formative stage. Futur e Mark et s The market is such that as a recent enquiry from a university in New York wished to have an observatory on the top of a 4 story building of steel construction. They have two major problems: - to have a stable telescope on such a building as well light pollution. A telescope must be very stable as you look at far distances and any movement will cause the loss of the image. It is bad enough to have a telescope up high on top of buildings especially if made of flexible materials such as steel. As well heat rises from the building below also a cause of loss of image. Light from the lit cities reduces the brightness of the astronomical objects to the extent some are not visible at all due to this light pollution. Added to this it would only be available for viewing during their night. If the observatory were set up in Australia in a Dark Sky Site it would be used during their day and would have the southern sky to view the better objects lacking in the northern hemisphere skies. There are still some limitations of remote observing but these are fast becoming overcome. Most viewing is now not viewing through the eye piece but with digital viewing on a monitor. Thus the distance from the telescope to the monitor is almost irrelevant Universities and schools around the world is a vast market, let alone the Armchair wealth astronomers of the financial corridors of the world business, all in lit cities. The great opportunity lies with these wealthy Armchair Astronomers who are in the lit cities all around the world. They do not have the time to travel far enough outside the lit cities from which they generate their wealth and would benefit from simply turning on their laptop to see the universe from their remote dark sky site/s. The time zones can be exploited for this use both for recreational or educational.

5 For instance the Astrodome sent to London (Chelsea) an installation for the top of The Class Room of the Future. This ought not to have left Australia. It should have been installed in an Australian Dark Sky Site with their telescope installed in it and plugged in to the internet. In the case of this project, as many others, they did not have readily available an expert in building an observatory and all that was needed is to have a turn key operation. This finished as a most expensive exercise. All this was for students to go home at night to observe through the internet, then only to view those objects that, even with modern technology which is of a great help in lit cities, that are visible only if the sky is clear of cloud. There is a profitable market therefore, for Australian based remote observatories, especially as a turn key operation ready and fully available for sale outright but with on going care and maintenance, or to be use on an hourly rental basis. This applies as well for observatories in overseas countries. The main areas for observatories are in the USA / North America. Additionally however, there are currently other markets existent in France, Germany, Spain. India, Italy and China - the list goes on. Col is hoping to set up an example remote dark-sky sit observatory for use via our website to show what he can do for this potential clientele.