That said, during my earliest telescopic adventures, I eschewed this advice. Not only will you have to deal with turbulence caused by different indoor and outdoor air temperatures, but you’ll also be limited to a small area of sky. In the Edmund Scientific publication All About Telescopes (I can picture you old-timers smiling with fond memories of that 1960s classic), author Sam Brown noted that window-gazing is something to avoid. “An open window for an observatory?!” purists will shriek. In the most basic sense, an observatory is nothing more than where you place your scope for an evening of skygazing, whether it’s a clear space in your yard or a spot near an open window. What about the rest of us, though - yours truly included? We have observatories, too they’re just not as sophisticated as custom-built structures. It’s impossible to provide detailed instructions for constructing your own backyard observatory in a single column, but if your gear is that sophisticated, it’s worth browsing the internet for a few observatory ideas that suit your personal needs. For you, having some kind of permanent structure is a necessity - unless you don’t mind wasting precious time lugging your telescope and equipment outside each clear evening. You own a large, fancy, computer-controlled telescope, as well as all the necessary accessories to capture astroimages worthy of Astronomy’s Reader Gallery section. Let’s say that you’re fortunate enough to live where 6th- or 7th-magnitude stars are visible on a clear, moonless night, and your horizon is wide open in all directions. However, application of levels and curves in Photoshop revealed the hidden details, as you can see here.If you’re an avid backyard astronomer and own a scope, I have a question for you: What’s your home setup like? Worse, the observatory dome was completely lost in darkness. Taken with a digital point-and-shoot camera having a puny built-in flash, parts of the telescope close to the camera were correctly exposed, but the objective end was not. Interestingly, the same techniques used to process astronomy images dramatically improved this shot. Other knobs to open and close various lens caps.Control box (hanging near 12" guide scope).Adjustment knobs for declination and aperture size.1½" finder scope on top of 6" finder scope. The controls are, roughly clockwise from the left: This photo shows the rear of the Clark 24" telescope. Views though the scope were bright and crisp, and we could detect some color in M51, the Whirpool Galaxy. When we visited, the Observatory staff had some difficulty finding targets, and later decided the "clock" (indicator) that displays the right ascension needed adjustment. Once aimed, clutches are engaged and a clock drive tracks the target. To aim the telescope, the observer uses the "Armstrong method" – shove it around by hand. You can learn more about the Lowell Observatory and its telescopes at The f/16 refractor weighs six tons (2-ton tube, 1-ton counterweights, 3-ton "other movable") the German equatorial mount weighs another seven tons. In 1894 Percival Lowell, a wealthy Bostonian, set up his own observatory in Flagstaff, and on July 23, 1896, he installed the 24" objective lens onto a 32-foot long tube and viewed the dark Arizona sky. On Jour family visited the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and spent some time looking through the 24" Clark refractor, behind us in this photo.
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