JOOL ZENITH TELESCOPE

THE JOOL ZENITH TELESCOPE
Kerbals throughout the subjoolian hemisphere consider Jool to be a literal god throughout history. As a result, the subjoolean point is a religiously important location. Some religions require their followers make a pilgrimage to the subjoolian point at least once in their lives. And naturally, it's a place of severe political tensions. Many religions have lost touch of the fact that Jool was once literally worshipped as god, and see the land as holy in and of itself, but some religions have preserved the astrological tradition.
Astronomers had built fixed Joolian telescopes before, as they are very easy to mount, but the prospect of a telescope in the desert which directly faces Jool was a very enticing idea, as it'd allow the telescope to look through the thinnest air and keep monitor of Jool at all times. Astronomers, secular or not, wanted an observatory there.

Only after the peace treaty which concluded a decade long holy war, about 130 years before alternis KSP takes place, did the region become politically stable enough for any institution to consider building an observatory. The holy lands had been desecrated, broken up by the war, and the attention given to the observatory projects helped along the rebuilding significantly.

An enormnous observatory campus, with contributors from around the globe, was built. A dozen domes were built to house instruments owned and operated internationally by various different universities and scientific institutions. They were geared specifically for planetary observing, as the region gets only a short time of truly dark skies (when the sun is eclipsed by Jool for a couple hours) and the planets remain plenty bright. Most of the instruments were achromatic refractors. Two of the telescopes were reflectors, an 8" speculum metal newtonian on something like a dobsonian mount, and the Great Jool Zenith Telescope, which was a large, permanently mounted telescope dug into the ground, with the eyepiece at a comfortable ground level. This used, at the time, the largest mirror ever ground, a 1.25 meter speculum metal mirror. Aiming across the large disk of Jool was enabled by screws which moved the optical tube within the outer walls of the observatory. The screws, like in the altitude motions of the stock-Kerbin munikerbolar telescope, were linked by drive shafts to wheels at the eyepiece.
The Great Jool Zenith Telescope's first public unveiling produced lines so long they had to turn people down and come up with a new solution. The building next door was refurbished from a storage shed into a dark viewing theater, and large groups could sit in the theater and view a projected image of Jool and any moons which might be transiting, which at night was plenty bright enough to see clearly.