Happy news for our SusanvilleStuff astronomy fans.Susanville’s Bateson Observatory has just upgraded its main telescope from a 6-inch Apochromatic refractor to an AstroTech 12-inch Ritchey Chretien Astrograph.
Dr. Bateson’s new equipment is specifically designed for astrophotography and is the same type of design as the Hubble Space Telescope.
Bateson explains that, “The primary and secondary mirrors are made of low thermal expansion quartz rather than the usual optical glass found in most telescopes and are hyperbolic rather than parabolic which eliminates, spherical aberation, chromatic aberation, coma and spherical distortion found in many other types of telescopes.”
- Dr. Bateson’s brand new AstroTech 12-inch Ritchey Chretien Astrograph
Both mirrors are fixed in position and the focusing is done with a Crayford type of focuser which eliminates mirror shift while focusing which is found in most Schmidt Cassegrain reflectors.
The smaller secondary telescope mounted on top of the main telescope is a Televue 85mm apochromatic refractor that has a larger field of view.
“The much smaller 8×50 guide scope and Orion computer controlled guide camera electronically tracks a star during long exposure photos to eliminate star trails,” says Bateson, “We are looking forward to producing even better photos than before!”
- Bringing celestial bodies into focus requires some amazingly technical equipment
