I understand that this is an exercise in rendering images, and there are good reasons we seek this sort of hyper-realism, it makes our visual communication more effective. However, when we forget what we are communicating and get lost in the mechanics of how we communicate it, we can really lose our way.

You know, it’s a sort of “the operation was a success but the patient died” kind of issue.

Ok you got me…

So, no I did not attempt to get the telescope orientation to match the lighting… perhaps I should have, but then I am not doing it to be used in advertising to the astronomy community…

The orientation of the lighting was carefully chosen, but only to bring out the best reflections on the dome….

I know its a nit-picky detail, but when you choose a telescope as your subject, astronomers will be especially vigilant for errors of this sort and intolerant of them. If this image were to be used in advertising for a dome kit, the customers would start with a negative opinion of the product and a loss of confidence in the manufacturer.

Equatorialy-mounted telescopes are usually shown in this orientation in their marketing literature because they look better, they appear more balanced and symmetrical when aimed right at the pole (just like advertising for timepieces often shows them set for 8:20). But it is a very awkward and difficult configuration for any scope to operate in, as anyone who has tried to observe objects near the poles can testify. Unless the scope mounting has a clock drive and a go-to feature or properly aligned setting circles, it is difficult for an observer to manually orient himself and almost impossible to locate and track objects near the poles

I also really like your concrete foundation…which isn’t something I say to everybody.

When the dome is open, you can’t get in or out of the observatory. Especially if the door opens out-you won’t be able to open it at all.
It will never meet the building code.

As for the bikini, you can google ‘blender cycles bikini’ and discover that a huge number of blender users are teenage boys apparently…