Putman Mountain Observatory

Robotic Mirror Cover

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Introduction Putman Mountain Observatory’s main instrument is a 16” Ritchey Chretien telescope manufactured by RC Optical Systems. The primary mirror is made from Zerodur which is a zero expansion material to make sure the mirror figure and shape do not change by temperature fluctuations. The primary mirror is also ion milled to 1/40 wave RMS. [...]

Boltwood Cloud Monitor

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The Boltwood cloud sensor is made by Diffraction Limited and measures the amount of cloud cover by comparing the temperature of the sky to the ambient temperature at ground level.  The sensor measure the sky temperature in the 8 to 14 micron infrared radiation band.  A large difference between the ambient temperature at ground level [...]

All Sky Camera

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All Sky Camera The  All Sky Camera is made by Santa Barbara Instruments Group (SBIG).  The camera is an astronomical camera mounted in a weatherproof enclosure with an acrylic dome for the camera lens.  The camera lens is a fish-eye type to give a full view from horizon to horizon. The camera is permanently mounted [...]

Calibrating Observatory Equipment

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Many months of time and effort were spent calibrating and adjusting  the observatory equipment to make image acquisition and automation more efficient. The following components were calibrated: Dome positioning - to within a degree of azimuth Telescope pointing using Bisque T-Point Model - within 10 arc seconds of pointing accuracy Telescope periodic error correction - [...]

What is a Weather Server?

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The Weather Server is a computer system that manages the collection of real-time weather and astronomical information. Once the information is collected, it is processed into web pages for display on this web site or it is made available to the observatory computer for use in managing the operation of the telescope so it can respond to changes [...]

Determining Back Focus for RCOS Telescopes

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  The back focus specification from RCOS for the Telescope is 9.929 inches.  See diagram below. Therefore, the focal plane for the camera should be as close as possible to 9.929 inches from the telescope backplate.  The camera, extension tubes, filter wheel and adaptive optics unit comprise the "imaging stack."  The imaging stack must be configured with [...]