There is no "if." We already know that Gravity waves pass through your observatory, otherwise centrifugal force of the Earth's rotation would throw said observatory away from this planet.
Yep. Tom Bethell wrote about (and was vehemently castigated for) this in The American Spectator in, I believe, the mid-80's. I still have the article somewhere. Glad to see one of the best writers anywhere exonerated.