This is one of the first telescopes designed by John O’Rourke when he started at Boller and Chivens. The part he designed was the white tube behind the blue tube. The Blue Tube was standard Boller and Chivens polar and declination axis structure. The White tube houses the optics. It had a 32 inch primary mirror and all new mirror supports.
Two telescopes were built to test a new concept in tracking Soviet satellites. The telescopes would look in an area of the sky suspected  to be the flight path of satellites. It would operate at sidereal rate to keep the star background fixed. The satellite would be traveling at much faster speed, and show up as a streak on the CCD sensor. Each satellite had it’s own signature so it could be identified and logged in. This telescope proved the concept and led to a world wide network of telescopes that operated throughout the cold war. The program was called GEODS. Boller and Chivens division, here in South Pasadena and Perkin Elmer, in Connecticut, combined to submit a proposal for the design and manufacture of eight GEODS Systems. We were low bidders on the first go-around but lost to Hughes on a “best and final offer”, they eliminated “overhead” and won the job.
Two telescopes (20” and 40”) were used in the Perkins Elmer proposal – no pictures, ‘top secret’.