ATEO Feeling at Home at SkyPi

After a 3 day long excursion across the country, the staff of Insight Observatory has delivered its Astronomical Telescope for Educational Outreach (ATEO) to its new home in Pie Town, New Mexico. The 16" f/3.75 Dream Aerospace Systems astrograph has been successfully installed in SkyPi Online Observatory's pod known as Gamma. When we arrived were greeted by SkyPi's Managing Member, John Evelan. We received a tour of the grounds and were introduced to the other imaging telescopes hosted by SkyPi.

John of SkyPi and Muir of Insight Observatory installing the 16" Primary Mirror.

Because of our week-long stay at SkyPi for the telescope installation, we were able to experience the dark and crystal-clear skies that this corner of New Mexico has to offer. We were also fortunate to be able to look thru a 20" Dobsonian telescope at the spring and summer objects that frankly took our breath away... The consensus was that these were some of the best views of objects like the Lagoon Nebula, the Veil Nebula, and others that we had never seen before such as the Crescent Nebula in Cygnus. Our deepest thanks to our host, Michael, a staff member of SkyPi, who was generous enough to share his telescope and time with us!

We planned for a full week at the remote observatory site which allowed us to take our time unloading, installing, and configuring the telescope. As we tested the components of the setup, we realized there were improvements that could be made to the focuser. Fortunately, SkyPi has resources in the surrounding area such as a talented machinist who was able to modify the focuser so it would perform with better precision. We were also able to configure all of the networking parameters to allow the public to access the telescope.

Michael of SkyPi Preparing the 16" Mirror for Installation.

This is an important milestone for the ATEO, but our work is not done yet; testing and configuration of the scope needs to be performed and completed, completion of the first iteration of our software has to be released, and other sundries that although minor is still important for success. All in all, we are excited and relieved to finally have the ATEO equipment delivered and installed at SkyPi, and now the real work begins!

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Insight Observatory Installs New Telescope for School Observatory

Insight Observatory was recently contracted by the Sacred Heart School located in Kingston, Massachusetts, to search out, find and install a suitable new telescope with a mounting system for their Sacred Heart Observatory located on a hill in the back of the school's campus. The 10' observatory dome was originally built on a structure back in 1999 that originally housed a 12" telescope. The observatory has been without a telescope since 2004 due to several technical issues with the instrument that could not be overcome. 

Sacred Heart Observatory, Kingston, MA

The observatory has since undergone renovations this past spring as part of Sacred Heart's STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) initiative. Part of these renovations included selecting a new instrument that would be an integral part of the astronomy curriculum and the astronomy club that will be offered at the school in the fall of 2014. After visiting the observatory and meeting with the institution's Director of Advancement along with the school's astronomy teacher, taking various measurements and discussing the requirements of the functionality of the telescope for the curriculum, Insight Observatory's staff set out to research equipment that would suit the astronomy program's needs.

C11 OTA Mounted on a Losmandy G11

Equatorial Mount

The result was a Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain 11" (C11) Telescope Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) to be mounted on a Losmandy G11 Equatorial Mount. This setup would allow users to enjoy good visual observing experiences as well as allow the opportunity of getting involved with the imaging of deep-sky objects and planets. This advanced mounting system is equipped with a "Go-To" system that allows an observer to slew the telescope to objects stored in its database. This "Go-To" system can either be controlled with a hand pad (included with the mount) or from software on a computer connected to the mount's console. If desired, the system can be connected and accessed remotely via the Internet as a remote robotic telescope. Phase one of the installation has been successfully implemented (physical assembly and mounting to the observatory's custom-made pier) and phase two (polar alignment with true north) will commence within the upcoming weeks.

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Mars Opposition

If you have never seen the red planet Mars through a telescope and would like to do so, then there is no better time than when the planet reaches opposition. Why is this so important? Simply because Mars will be closer to the Earth, and this means that Mars will appear larger when viewed or imaged through telescopes. A larger planet presents better opportunities for viewing small features that are usually hard to see: polar caps become easily visible, and larger features like Syrtis Major have more clarity and structure is easier to discern.

Mars Imaged by Michael Petrasko on 10-02-2005 with a C11 SCT
 and Celestron NexImage  Planetary Camera

Luckily this spring Mars will reach opposition on April 8, 2014. So now's your chance to take advantage of this opportune moment. Keep in mind, however, that Mars still appears fairly small in scopes (when compared to the likes of Jupiter or Saturn, that is). We have had the opportunity to observe and image Mars ourselves many times in the past from our backyard remote robotic telescopes and it has always been a fascinating object... Viewing the surface of another planet does wonder in stirring up the imagination! Find out for yourself what Percival Lowell and Carl Sagan found so alluring about our red neighbor. 

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