The HBO Telescope

Taking Dome Flats	Lisa Grossman (Astro4410 student) with scope

The primary mirror of the Hartung-Boothroyd telescope is made of Pyrex from the Corning Glass Works, and is in fact from a 1/8-scale test pour by the Corning company in preparation for the making of the 200" Palomar mirror. It is 25" in size but the outer quarter inch is masked. The focal length of the mirror is 100 inches (f/8).

The secondary is an 8" mirror made of Cervit (a low thermal coefficient material). In combination with the primary, it yields a final f/13.5 beam to the nominal focus, which lies 18.5" behind the primary mirror's vertex. At nominal focus, the plate scale is about 24 arcsec/mm.

The Control Room

Greg Wojtaszczyk (Astro4410 student) controlling telescope	Data reduction desk and kitchenette

The dome itself, like all professional observatories, is unheated. The telescope and instrumentation can be controlled from a neighboring control room which is heated and offers standard amenities plus several computers for simultaneous data reduction.

-- DonBarry - 22 Aug 2005