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The Celestron C14 Telescopes

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The Observatory has two permanently mounted C14 telescopes. Each is an optical tube assembly from the CGE 1400 series of Celestron telescopes, installed on a Bisque Paramount ME robotic-capable telescope mount.

The optical specification is 14-inch (356mm) Schmidt-Cassegrain design operating at f/11 (3910mm focal length). Custom-built dewcaps were constructed in-house.

The telescopes have Van Slyke Engineering Omega 2.7" focusers, VSE "Mega-Port Sidewinders", and matching CCD cameras installed. Each camera has 6.3 million 9x9 micron pixels in an array of 3072 x 2048 giving a field of view of 18 x 24 arcmin.

Acquired:2006 (W), 2010 (E)
Optics:Schmidt-Cassegrain
Aperture:14" (356mm)
Focal Length:154" (3910mm; f/11)
Detector:SBIG STL-6303E CCD (3072x2048 array, 9x9 micron pixels)
Additional Instrumentation:Van Slyke Engineering Omega 2.7" focuser, VSE "Mega-Port Sidewinder"
CCD Field of view:18 x 24 arcmin
Controls:Digital GoTo
Drive:brushless DC servomotors
Mount:Bisque Paramount ME (German Equatorial)
Filters – C14E
(5-position filter wheel)
Johnson-Cousins BVRI filters from Schuler (response curves; and a more detailed discussion) –
 original V filter replaced by a near equivalent from Norman Walker;
Hα filter from Custom Scientific(4.5nm bandwidth, peak transmission 0.90).
Each 4mm thick, 48–50mm diameter.
Filters – C14W
(8-position filter wheel)
Custom Scientific LRGB;
Johnson-Cousins RI filters from Astrodon (response curves);
Hα filter from 
Astrodon (6nm bandwidth).
Each 3mm thick, 50mm diameter
Spectrograph – C14EThe C14E is equipped, on an experimental basis, with a Shelyak Lhires III spectrograph, with a fibre feed designed and constructed by Nic Clarke. Stephen Boyle'scommissioning-phase report is available, characterizing the system prior to the fibre feed (which leaves many properties unaffected).
ED80 – C14WAn Explore Scientific ED80 f/6 apochromatic refractor is piggybacked on the C14W, for wide-field imaging.