Elliot 24-inch Telescope

The Elliot 24-inch telescope is located in the large white offset dome near the parking lot. It was installed in 2017.

Mount Bisque Taurus 600 equatorial fork mount with axis encoders
Pointing Accuracy 13.4 arcseconds RMS
Max exposure Unguided 5-10 minutes, Guided 60+ minutes
Telescope Planewave 24-inch CDK f/6.5
Focal length F=3962mm
Instrument Port #1 FLI PL16803 CCD - 9um px - 4096x4096 pixels / Filters=Clear, g', r', i', z', u', R
Instrument Port #2 55 mm TeleVue Plossl eyepiece or 25mm eyepiece
Instrument Port #3 Lhires III spectrograph with a ZWO ASI2600MM CMOS detector  - Neon calibration lamp - gratings=150g/mm, 300, 600, 1200 and 2400.         Slit camera (ZWO ASI485MC) FOV ~5'.
Instrument Port #4 ZWO 2600MC color CMOS camera
Autoguider Off-axis, ZWO ASI290MM Mini camera on Explore Scientific ED  102 102mm f/7 refractor

 

The Lhires III PF0001 spectrograph is made by Shelyak Instruments.

Slit width is approximately 1.3".  It spans approximately 29 um at the focal plane.       

Spectrograph Specs  (with 1x1 binning)
Grating 600 (lines/mm)
Spectral domain or FOV in Å 1800
Power of resolution ~2500
Limiting magnitude S/N=100 ~8
Dispersion (Å/pix) @ Halpha 0.29
Dispersion (km/s)/pix 13.6
Micrometer position(s)  6500 A @ 2.75mm

Wallace 24-inch Telescope

Background

The 24-in telescope at Wallace is an Ealing "24-in Research Cassegrain Coudé" reflector on an asymmetric German equatorial mount. The optical specifications are as follows: D=600.075mm, F=9360mm, f/15.6, as measured after the recent refurbishment in 2009. The image scale is 22.04 arcsec/mm at its Cassegrain focus. The 24-in telescope was built as the centerpiece of the observatory in 1971. In its Cassegrain configuration it's been the telescope most used for research at Wallace and several papers and theses have been published using data obtained with it. The mirror was recoated in 2009 and the control system was reworked in 2013 by Tim Brothers and Dan Gray of Sidereal Technology ("SiTech").  

The Wallace telescope control system was retrofitted in 2025 with an Astrometric Instruments TCS system to enable remote robotic use. 

Mount Ealing Corporation
Pointing Accuracy 1.9 arcminutes RMS
Max exposure Unguided 120s - Guided 2-10min
Telescope Ealing 24-inch Cassegrain
Diameter of primary D=600.075mm
Focal length - f/# F=9360mm, f/15.6
Instrument Port #1 Eyepiece: 23mm - 40mm
Instrument Port #2  
Instrument Port #3; SBIG STL-1001e with Clear, BVRI filters
Instrument Port #4  
Autoguider Yes, External

The Shed Telescopes

There are four 14-inch telescopes (Celestron C-14's of both the 1970's "orange tube" variety and 2 new EdgeHD versions) in the Shed. One is mounted on a new equatorial mount, the other three are mounted on German equatorial mounts. All four have idential detectors and mostly identical filter sets. The roll-off roof building, affectionately refered to as "the Shed," was built in 1984. The "orange tube" C-14's were refurbished in ~2016 and still produce excellent images and science data. The most recent upgrade is a new refractor mounted to Pier 1. This will provide a new capability at Wallace for super wide field imaging. This 90mm Astro-Tech refractor has two focal length settings depending on whether the observer utilizes the focal reducer. The refractor's filter wheel contains a set of Sloan filters for photometry.

The most recent update in the Shed is the upgrade from CCDs to modern CMOS detectors.  These new detectors have significantly less noise, dark current and much improved quantum efficiency.  We also upgrade Pier 4's mount to a Taurus 400 equatorial mount.    

  Pier 1 Pier 1 refractor Pier 2 Pier 3 Pier 4
Mount Planewave L-350 Planewave L-350 Software Bisque Paramount ME       Software Bisque Paramount ME with MKS5000 Upgrade Software Bisque  Taurus 400 
Telescope Celestron C-14 Edge HD Astro-Tech 90mm Carbon Fiber Tube Celestron C-14 Edge HD Celestron C-14 "orange tube" Celestron C-14 EdgeHD
Focal length - f/# F=~3910mm - f/11

F=530mm f/6

or F=432 f/4.8 

F=~3910mm - f/11 F=~3910mm - f/11 F=~3910mm - f/11
Plate Scale 0.2"/px 1.43"/px or 1.792"/px 0.189"/px 0.2"/px 0.205"/px
Camera QHY268M-PH CMOS QHY533m CMOS QHY268M-PH CMOS QHY268M-PH CMOS QHY268M-PH CMOS
Camera info 6252*4176 pixels @3.76um 3008x3008 @3.76um 6252*4176 pixels @3.76um 6252*4176 pixels @3.76um  6252*4176 pixels @3.76um
Filter set Clear, u', g', r', i', z', R Sloan u', g', r', i', z' set. Also available: H-alpha, OIII and SII and LRGB set; Clear, u', g', r', i', z', R Clear, u', g', r', i', z', R Clear, u', g', r', i', z', R
Autoguider Yes Yes No Yes, off-axis (offline) No