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F. A. Ringwald, J. W. Prigge, S. J. White, A. I. Cowley (California State University, Fresno), G. E. Morgan (Central Valley Astronomers), B. K. Bellis (Central Valley Astronomers, California State University, Fresno), E. D. Cardoza, S. S. Endler (California State University, Fresno), H. D. Guenther (Biola University), G. Reyna, J. D. Rorabaugh, R. W. Severson, Jr. (California State University, Fresno)
Fresno State's new Campus Observatory, behind the Downing Planetarium, became operational in 2002 May. The 16-inch Meade LX-200 telescope's current instruments are all used at Schmidt-Cassegrain focus at f/10, and include an SBIG ST-8 CCD camera, an AO-7 Adaptive Optics System, and a Self-Guiding Spectrograph. The telescope's image resolution is between 1-2 arcseconds for 80 a facility not on a mountaintop. This is probably because of the observatory's small size, unpainted aluminum skin, and being surrounded by grass, all good for thermal properties. Despite being on campus (and convenient for students to use), it can reach V = 18.5 in 80s at S/N = 3, in a sky with stars visible only to V = 3. On most projects students collaborate with the Cental Valley Astronomers, Fresno's amateur astronomy club, who are a great help.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/opps.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: ringwald@csufresno.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.