Equipment
The Oakley Observatory houses eight permanently mounted telescopes. Each pier has parallel, serial, and Internet connections along with electrical outlets. The wiring runs under the floor to a computer
cabinet on the north end of the building. The cabinet is heated and air conditioned. The control computers are all connected to the internet.
The piers are numbered for easy identification of the telescopes and control computers and to assign student groups.
Clark Refractor
Our #1 telescope is the 6-inch Clark refractor. Alvan Clark (1804-87) and his two sons, Alvan Graham and George Bassett were world famous for making the best telescopes as well as the largest telescopes
of the time. Hans Eppinger of Hughes Optical Products, Inc. donated the optical tube assembly of the Clark refractor to Rose-Hulman in 1990. Because there was no mount for the telescope, it was mounted
on a wall in Moench Hall as a decoration. Later, the telescope was completely refurbished and placed on a Meade LX750 Mount in the old observatory dome.
The Clark is now on a Paramount ME computer controlled mount manufactured by Software Bisque and is used
mainly for visual observing but a STL-6303E CCD camera from
Santa Barbara Instrument Group
is available for imaging. We also have solar filter for
viewing sunspots.
Fecker Reflector
The #2 telescope is an 8-inch Fecker telescope which was donated to Rose Polytechnic in 1961 by Mr. Crawford Failey, president of Wabash Reality, Inc. The telescope was the first telescope in the original
observatory dome. It is now on a Paramount ME mount. The optical system seems to be a Newtonian layout, parabolic primary with a plane secondary mirror, with a Cassegrain focus, through a hole in the
primary. Like the Clark, this telescope is used for visual observing.
J.W. Fecker was one of the first to perfect the construction of the Schmidt camera. He started his own business in Cleveland in the 1920's. J.W. Fecker Inc. built a 24-inch telescope for Arizona State
College and a 38-inch Cassegrain for Bulter University, Indiana.
Celestrons
Five
of the remaining six telescopes are 14-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain optical systems
on Paramount ME mounts. The Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope is named for Bernhard Schmidt, a German astronomer, and Sieur Cassegrain, a French
sculptor. Light enters through a collecting plate. The correcting plate is a thin, aspheric correction lens. The corrected light passes through the optical tube to a spherical primary mirror and then
back up to the tube to a convex secondary mirror. The light is returned back down the scope through a hole in the primary mirror.
The #3,
#4 and #8 telescopes are set up with a CCD
camera from Santa Barbara Instrument Group
(STL-1001E). The camera has a built-in filter
wheel for taking color images. These telescopes
are used for imaging deep sky objects and for research.
Telescopes
#5 and #6 are also 14-inch Celestrons on Paramount ME
mounts. Unlike the previously mentioned
telescopes this pair is used primarily for
visual observing. We do have an SBIG STL-4020M
camera available for use on either of these
telescopes. Telescope #6 was donated by Larry Dultz
of Terre Haute.
Before
the 14-inch telescopes were installed in the #5 and #6 spots, we had 11-inch Celestrons
mounted. Unlike the 14-inch version, the 11-inch Celestron does not come with mirror lock-down bolts. To see how we added these bolts check out:
Mirror Lock-down Bolts for Celestron Telescopes.
The 11-inch telescopes are now in storage.
Ritchey Chretien
Telescope #7 is a
20-inch Ritchey Chrétien telescope from RC Optical. This is our newest telescope. It is used
primarily for deep sky imaging with an STL-1001E CCD camera. This telescope is
identical to the telescope in the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory and is helpful
for debugging problems with the telescope in Australia.
12-inch Meade LX200
Oakley observatory has two 12-inch Meade LX 200 telescopes. These telescopes were funded by an NSF grant from the Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement program. We have Santa Barbara Instrument
Group ST-6 cameras and filter wheels for these telescopes. The LX 200s were originally our #3 and #4 telescopes, but have been replaced by the Celestron telescopes described above.
Newtonian
The Oakley Observatory also has a 10-inch Newtonian telescope on a Dobsonian mount. This portable telescope is used for visual observing. We frequently take it to elementary schools or to local parks
for star parties. The telescope has a solar filter so it can also be used during the day to view sunspots.
References
- Clark, Alvan. Infoplease.com. <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0812411.htm>. Date last Accessed:
July 14, 2003.
- Dearborn Telescope. The Deller Conservation Group. <http://deller.com/newpage6.htmm>. Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003. Date last Modified: October 20,2000.
- Optical Assembly. Minnesota Astromical Society. <http://www.mnastro.org>. Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003. Date last Modified: January 21, 2001.
- Orange County
Astronomers. <http://www.chapman.edu/oca/clarkbookreview.html>. Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003.
- Sirius 2. <http://www.solstation.com/stars/sirius2.htm>. Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003.
- Stars in Their Eyes. Smithsonian Magazine. <http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues01/oct01/refractors.html>.
Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003. Date last Modified: October 2001.
- the @astro pages- @stro objects archive- Newtonian Reflecting Telescope. the @stro pages.com. <http://theastropages.com/astroobjects/2000/20000103.htm>.
Date last Accessed: July 14, 2003.
