1.1 Meter Telescope

Updated 3-22-06

This is the preliminary design for our 1.1 meter F8 telescope. Total height will be just under twelve feet and its estimated to weigh almost two tons.



This is an alt/az style mount and the entire telescope rotates on the base. There are three moving axes, two for altitude and azimuth and a third to rotate the instrument package to maintain star alignment.

We intend to move the assembly using servo motors driving Tim Pucket's band drive system which has proven reliable and accurate. The AO-7 based instrument package will mount on the back (not shown).

Optically we have the F2 primary feeding a 10" diameter spherical secondary, then through two corrector lenses to the instruments. The design on paper is diffraction limited across our CCD's field of view. The system will be fully automated using a combination of ASCOM compliant software, Labview and scripting.

This telescopes primary job will be spectroscopy with imaging as a secondary goal. Hence the design has been optimized with this in mind.