Telescopes/Instruments
Our site has two telescopes: a 20-inch and a 16-inch. The mounts for both are designed and constructed by Ron Hilliard of Optomechanics Research Inc. (Vail, AZ).
The 20-inch mount was upgraded in 2017. It is driven by a Primte TCS system designed by Astrometric Instuments. The mirror focus mechanism is the originial motor driven one designed by Ron Hilliard.
The 16-ich mount is driven by stepper motors run by Omega timing/control cards using older versions of PC-TCS software written by Dave Harvey. That mout was updated in 2012 with an ST-4 style interface to allow auto-guiding of exposures.
20-Inch Telescope
The 20-inch is a custom F/13 Cassegrain reflector with aluminum coated mirrors. This telescope is used both for imaging and spectroscopy. The following instruments are used with this telescope:
10-C Spectrograph (SBIG STT-1603ME camera)
R~1000-5000 spectroscopy
Long slit available
SE200 Echelette Spectrograph (Apogee U32 camera)
R~20000 spectroscopy from red to blue atmospheric cut-off
Field of view ~ 20 x 20 arc minutes
Astrodon Johnson-Cousins UBVRIc filters + SA-200 grating
16-Inch Telescope
The 16-inch is a Mead LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain F/10. It is primarily used to do photometry of bright stars with an Optec SSP-3 solid state photometer. It is capable of carrying the Apogee U42 imaging camera or the SBIG STT-1603ME imaging camera to do imaging.