Observatory, telescope and equipment advice needed!

Hey Daniel,
you should get Michael O'Connell (on these boards, same name) to present to you his recent talk (about an hour) on how he built his observatory. It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it will give you some insight into what is needed. He has accommodated it with his LX90 8" too.

Could prove to have some useful stuff in it...

Seanie.

OK. Let's see...

If you go for an OTA above 16 inches you'll be very limited by the seeing. I've heard of a 20" RCOS being pretty much unusable on nights of poor seeing. The seeing in Celbridge is mostly around 3 to 5 arcsecs. Not bad but not great. I don't know about Dublin but it would be worth finding that out. My advice would be to stick to 16" or less. Above that and you're into serious money.

The Meade LX200's (16") are supposedly good value. The Celestron C14 is used by a lot of amateurs doing science so that's a good choice.

For photography, the mount is critical and the number one priority. The RCX's seem to be getting a poor enough press. The mounts are temperamental and tracking is apparently not great. The OTA's seem to perform OK but some complain of design flaws. Also, if you buy one, you've pretty much cut yourself out of an upgrade path. I don't know anyhting about the new LX200R's (which you can buy as an OTA only). You can't buy a Meade RCX OTA on its own AFAIK. The 20" RCX on the MaxMount looks tasty alright but is unproven.

Meade do seem to suffer from customer satisfaction issues from time to time. As do Celestron... Its a lot of money to pay out for what may turn out to be a lemon. For the same money you can get a guaranteed combination mount/ota.

If you want a dead cert mount, there are two reasonable choices - Paramount ME and Astro-Physics 1200. There's a wait list on the AP mount but I understand you can get one in less than 18 months now. Or you could buy second-hand. You can buy a Paramount off-the-shelf but is $3000 more expensive.

Performance wise, both are proven designs and work as stated. The Paramount is goto - but only via a computer. The AP has a self-contained keypad - no PC required.

Buy a 16" meade or a 14" celestron OTA. There are others out there but you'll spend months doing the research. Trust me. These two are proven.

That setup of mount and OTA will take good images and you can do science. But is way OTT for visual work.

Imager - go for a self-guiding SBIG. Finger Lakes are better but do not self guide. Go for a one-shot colour for pretty pictures and astrometry. But it won't do for photometry

If you want to do photometry (accurate magnitude measurements) you'll need a BVRI filter set and wheel plus serious software. Photometry would be graduate level research.

Astrometry (precise positioning) is easy enough and can be done with the setup above.

Including a pc, observatory and software etc, I'd say you could do this for less than 50K. But its still a serious piece of kit that can easily be turned to junk in the wrong hands.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you really, really, really need to be very very specific about what the goals are. Forget equipment - get the goals sorted and your choices will be narrowed down significantly.

By way of example, your goals as they are could be achieved with a 4 inch achromat on a mass-produced mount with a cheap camera. Including the HA scope and some eypieces, you're talking probaly less than 10 grand. Lash an observatory onto that and you might hit the 15 K level.

But also, as your goals stand, they can be achieved with all 100K and a bit more for luck!

You should also consider this. Many of the folks here with OTA's larger than say 8" who are imaging are on a very steep learning curve. Even those visually observing with large scopes can attest to the learning curve. Make no mistakes, you will not be assembling this and have it work perfectly out of the box. Its taken me over a year to get to where I am - and I know many others here are in the same boat. The equipment has always operated perfectly but the techniques of using it are at best complicated, at worst, bizarre...

I don't mean for this to sound negative at all. If someone gave me even 20 grand to spend on a setup, I'd really have to think very very hard about it. I'd have to think even harder if it was 100K...

HTH

Dave

I see the plans for the SDAS observatory are coming on well then :lol:

I see the plans for the SDAS observatory are coming on well then :lol:

Heh! We're starting to give it thought. Might have to increase the membership rates though (that was a joke of course).

If you want to add any input as to what we should or shouldn't get. I would like to make sure that we can knock some 4th year or Young Scientist projects out of it.

Best piece of advice I could give is the following:
No. 1: Mount
No. 2: Scope
No. 3: Camera
This is the priority you should give in relation to funds.

You should definetly read "The New CCD Astronomy". A real eye-opener.

Some sort of research facility to high school / undergrad university standard. I'm afraid I know next to nothing about this side of astronomy. I do recall a neighbour showing me the spectrum of a star. That sort of thing would be interesting for physics students for instance. Maybe you could elaborate on astrometry and photometry and the sort of equipment needed for it.

It would probably be worth getting in touch with Michael Redfern in NUIG to get an idea on what is possible from Dublin Skies, and more importantly what is of scientific use. Their undergrad observatory has I think a 12" scope (it had a 12" LX200 but was upgraded); that is ran as a small professional observatory which is something like what you are aiming at. Though as you say you need to be careful not to forget the visual aspect.

Basic spectroscopy is certainly doable, I've got spectra with 4" scope and a $20 grating. Again Mike might be able to advise on what would be appropriate for research. Maurice Gavin[1] in the UK would also be worth getting in touch with for an opinion on spectoscopy equipment.

It's got to be a dome. I think we're going to build a brick housing and then place the dome on top. Does that sound reasonable? I know there are trees quite close by so I would really like to raise it up a bit so that we get some clearance. Good to kill the light pollution all the same. We're looking to have a pillar placed in too.

If this is where I think it is the trees should not be too much of a problem, they are blocking out a lot of direct light for you. Raising it a 'bit', a few feet, would probably be good, but I doubt that building it at 1st floor height will be worthwhile. Also check the plans for any new buildings nearby.

I didnt see the option of remote control of the scope disccused to much yet. I assume that since the building will have power it will also have a network cable running back to the main building, though you might be in wireless range.

Dave is probably right about the requirements for photometry being high. The BVRI filters alone would be expensive. However I think its worth keeping the options of basic photometry open; even if its with unfiltered light. You may not choose to get equipment capable of professional level observations, but reasonably accurate asteroid measurements would be within reach. Dan, you might want to ping Guy about this; he had mentioned that magnitude observations of asteroids was possible with amateur equipment and had a contribution to make in determining asteroid rotation and shape.

Cheers,
~Al

[1] www.astroman.fsnet.co.uk/spectro.htm