The Tulwood Observatory

The Tulwood Observatory is an observatory located on a hill overlooking the shipyard in Tulwood. It is most notable for its towering clocktower, which can be seen from any of Tulwood's many piers, as well as much of the city. This clock is designed to similarly exacting specifications as the Marine Chronometers used for navigation, and is used to calibrate each ship's individual chronometer. Thus, Tulwood ships measure their position in part by calculating how far east and west they are from the Tulwood Observatory.

Historical Building

The original observatory was a four story building with a large flat roof. Positioned on the hill, this positioned astronomers on the roof high above the other buildings and local topology, making it an excellent site for early astronomers to work with the early telescopes of the day. Much of this work was an effort to determine a way solve the longitude problem through astronomical observations. This produced a meticulous list of observations about the movements of the planets, stars, moons and sun, but was unable to provide a precise solution to the problem at hand.

Modern Structure

After the development of the Marine Chronometer, the observatory was reinforced, and extended upward several floors. The upper floors are primarily occupied by the most precise clockworks that could be designed, driving massive clock faces on each of the 4 sides of the tower that feature hour, minute and second hands.
An access stair through the clockworks leads up to a modern observatory. This features a large mounted telescope within an enclosed dome. This dome has a slit in it through which the telescope is sighted, and the entire mechanism can be rotated and the telescope can be aimed up and down. A sliding shutter blocks out light where the telescope is not pointed, and both tinted glass and solid caps can be fitted over the telescope itself, allowing for observation of the sun and protection of the telescope when not in use.
On the roof of the clockwork mechanism, a flat balcony surrounds the observatory dome, permitting the use of handheld telescopes for aditional observations. Every day at precisely noon, a large red beacon is also dropped from the balcony off the side facing the docks. This is used as an obvious visual indicator for ship navigators calibrating their chronometers. This beacon is a painted wooden block, bound to a chain. This mechanism allows it to drop freely from the top to the bottom of the clock face, then slows its descent to a stop by the top of the ground floor, as well as allowing its retrieval for the next day.
The floors of the old observatory are mostly used as offices and records storage for the astronomers using the observatory above, but the ground floor features an exhibit showing a number of the critical stages in development of the marine chronometer. Some of these are prototype chronometers have been kept wound continuously since their construction, which is possible as the early designs did not require lubrication.