Sangre Observatory with 18.5 foot Ash-Dome
The Sangre Observatory was built in 1987 and consisted of a 19 foot dome and housed a 24″ f/6.2 Schmidt Cassegrain telescope (SCT) built by Astro Works Corp. The first several years were devoted to astrophotography. A vacuum backed 4 X 5 camera allowed full frame coverage equaling a 7.5 in. circular field (2.9 degrees). All guiding was manual. Among Images taken – the Andromeda galaxy was on the cover of Sky & Telescope May 1990 and the Trifid Nebula appeared in Sky & Telescope Nov. 1988. The 24″ SCT was lost due to an unfortunate accident in late 1994. The only other 24″ SCT made by AstroWorks can be seen at: Dr. Mike Sisk’s Observatory.
An ST- 6 and ST- 4 CCD were purchased in 1992 from the Santa Barbara Instrument Group. In 1994 I joined the Santa Barbara Astronomy Group which had been engaged in working with NASA’s gamma-ray burst program (see The Astrophysical Journal, 422:L71-L74, 1994 February 20). In early 1994 I obtained an AXIOM CCD camera with a larger chip (KAF 1600) from Apogee Instruments. In 2001 I purchased a Finger Lakes InstrumentationCCD (Dream Machine) camera. The CCD in this camera is a SITe thinned back chip 1Kx1K with 24 micron pixels. Flat fields will be obtained using a SORICSCREEN™ purchased from Astronomical Consultants & Equipment, Inc. I am currently using MIRA Pro, Axiom Research, as my image and data processing software. For camera control MaxIm DL/CCDfrom Cyanogen Productions Inc. is used.
25.5" f/8 Richy Cassegrain telescope This telescope was built by Wayne Rosing (Remote Telescope Company)
Early in 1995 I started working with Wayne Rosing (The Remote Telescope Company, Inc.) in Los Gatos, CA. Wayne was considering constructing a 25.5″ f/8 Richy Cassegrain telescope. Attached to the main telescope will be an Astro-Physics StarFire 180mm f9 refractor. This telescope was installed in the Sangre Observatory in the fall of 2000. The telescope control system and electronics was also designed by Wayne Rosing. As of June 2001 this new instrument is collimated and undergoing extensive testing. A combination of three layered filter wheels will hold a focal reducer (f/4.2), 2X Barlow and up to ten filters. BVRI filters (Custom Scientific ) will initially be used for photometry. Currently I am taking images of the Landolt Selected Areas along the equator and duplicating these photometric standards.
The Control Room
An 18.5 foot Ash-Dome was installed in 1998 and in January 2001 a 16′ x 20′ warm room adjacent to the observatory was constructed. The electronic panel and computers are located in this highly insulated room. A LAN is set up between the warm room and another control room attached to the house 200′ away.
