MEXIA FABRICATORS IN WORTHAM is providing part of the Discovery Channel Telescope to be installed outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. The Discovery Channel visited Wortham to follow construction. A Wortham fabricating facility is providing part of the construction of a 78 feet tall, 62 feet diameter state of the art telescope and housing for the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, funded by, and appropriately named, The Discovery Channel Telescope.

Design and construction of the $42 million project is being followed by the Discovery Channel, and included a film crew who visited Mexia Fabricators in Wortham in September.

The Wortham facility is providing construction of the telescope's support hardware—-the telescope mount which includes the pedestal, drivers and antenna sections, and the trial assembly of the large telescope pedestal segments. The plant has a long history of producing very large pedestals and towers for telescopes and large antennaes that require precision pointing and tracking, and is a division of General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies.

The Discovery Channel Telescope, or DCT, is an optical telescope that will be among the most technically sophisticated groundbased telescopes of its size. Expected to be the fifth largest telescope in the continental U.S., the DCT is designed to ultimately accommodate four different optical configurations, and will be applied to a wide range of research topics.

Initially, the research will include a survey of objects orbiting the sun beyond Neptune, studies of the physical properties of comets, investigations of the evolution and structure of small galaxies, as well as studies of the masses of stars.

The primary mirror of the telescope will be a 4.25 meter clear aperture, 100 mm thick. The mirror will weigh some 6,700 pounds. The DCT will be located at 7,760 foot altitude on the edge of the Mogollon Rim at a site offering outstanding image quality and dark skies. Location of the telescope will be 45 miles south-southeast of Flagstaff, at Happy Jack, Arizona.

The DCT project began with feasibility studies in 2003. Design began in 2008. Construction began at various locations around the world and will be completed in March, 2010. Installation of all segments should be complete in July of next year, and the telescope should be working by late next year or early 2011.

Lowell Observatory is a private, non-profit research institution founded in 1894 by Percival Lowell. The Observatory has been the site of many important findings including the discovery of the large recessional velocities (redshift) of galaxies by Vesto Slipher in 1912-1914 (a result that led ultimately to the realization the universe is expanding), and the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. Today, Lowell's 19 astronomers use groundbased telescopes around the world, telescopes in space, and NASA planetary spacecraft to conduct research in diverse areas of astronomy and planetary science. The Observatory welcomes about 75,000 visitors each year to its Mars Hill campus in Flagstaff, Arizona for a variety of tours, telescope viewing, and special programs. Lowell Observatory currently has four research telescopes at its Anderson Mesa dark sky site east of Flagstaff, and waiting for the completion of the DCT.

Mexia Fabricators employs more than 100 people, and did not need additional manpower to complete the project.

Several websites offer more detailed information about the telescope and the observatory including www.lowell.edu/dct/index .php