The Final Days of Installation
We ran into a few rough nights, but thankfully, over the course of several nights, we were able to perfect our telescope by the time Ian left. We began by tracking a star near the meridian and 0 degrees declination. By noting if star drifted north or south, we could perfect our alignment with true north. Next, we tracked a star about 6 hours east or west and about 45 degrees declination. By noting if the star was drifting north or south, we could adjust the polar mount of our telescope (lifting or lowering the telescope's polar axis) until the star stayed put. Of course, to do this the crosshairs in the eyepiece needed to be aligned north/south. Ian had given Alyson this job during the day, so everything was already in place. When this was adjusted, we began our point model, which is when knowledge of our new software was needed. Thankfully, we had been learning as much as possible all week. Alyson, Denis, and Megan learn the new software. The big blue box in the background is the telescope's motor driver chasis.
To run a point model, we began by finding a star near the zenith that we knew, centering it in the eyepiece, and entering it as data into the telescope's computer. From then on, we linked the telescope to our new "The Sky" software. We could simply look at a map of what our sky looked like above, decided which star we wanted to go to, click on it, and send the telescope there. We went across the sky on the meridian, finding and centering a star about every 10 degrees, then did the same across zero declination, remembering to enter all of these points into the computer. When we were done, we were able to see several plots of these points. By examining the curvature and slope of each graph, we were able to see where the telescope needed fine tuning, and exactly how much tuning. After the fine tuning, we ran the point model again and entered numbers to adjust for problems in each graph. The computer now has these numbers stored and uses them to adjust for error in our pointing, making our pointing extremely accurate. In fact, Ian told us that we achieved better results than any other 16" telescope they've installed! Denis pauses for a reflective moment
After Ian left, it was a matter of small things to get us where we wanted. Megan and Alyson handled pretty much everything, and did a lot of trouble shooting before everything was finally done. However, the CCD camera has been tested using the new software, "CCDSoft." "CCDSoft" is much more sophisticated than the program we had previously used, "CCDOps." We are now able to be more accurate with our temperature setting (the camera must be cooled before images are taken) and with our focusing. The images we've taken with CCDSoft and the new telescope are much more resolved (and beautiful!) than we've ever taken before. All in all, it's a very exciting time here in the astronomy department! Ian shows off our new telescope
Ian, Alyson, Denis, Megan, and Kim with the final product.