UH Hilo Educational Telescope: The Facility
This section
presents some detailed technical information on the telescope,
instrumentation,
dome and observatory site.
TELESCOPE
The
telescope is a state-of-the-art
PlaneWave Instruments CDK700 observatory system, with an aperture of
0.7 meter (28") and a focal ratio of F/6.5. The mirrors are made of
fused silica glass with a very low thermal expansion.
The Corrected
Dall-Kirkham (CDK) optical design provides an optimal field of view of
70mm at
the
focal plane. The mount is of an alt-az design with direct-drive motors
and high-precision encoders. Two instruments are available, each
installed on a field de-rotator at both Nasmyth
focii. Switching from one instrument to the other is done by moving the
tertiary mirror and is very quick (~ 5
seconds). The telescope can be operated in a classical, remote
or robotic mode from anywhere with Internet access.
For more detailed information on the telescope, please click here: CDK700 Telescope
For more detailed information on the telescope, please click here: CDK700 Telescope
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INSTRUMENTATION
The
first generation of instruments includes a CCD camera with a set
of broad and narrow
bandpass (50mm square) filters,
and a fiber-fed echelle spectrograph.
The CCD camera is an electronically cooled FLI 16803 ProLine camera,
with 4096 x 4096 pixels and a pixel size of 9 microns. As a
result, the imaging pixel scale is 0.41"/pixel and the field-of-view is
28' x
28'. The filters include the typical UBVRI set, a Sloan set,
a LRGB set and several narrow-band (30 or 50 Ang. wide) filters
centered on some of the main nebular lines. These filters are mounted
in two
FLI CenterLine CL-1-10 filter wheels, each wheel
containing 10 filters (2 free apertures).
The Shelyak Echelle spectrograph (eShel)
includes a fiber-fed module, a
cross-dispersor, internal calibration lamps, a guiding module, and
operating software. The detector is an QSI 632s CCD
camera.
Typical spectral resolution is 10000, covering 450-700nm.
Both instruments are available at a given
time on
each
Nasmyth port and can be selected by quickly rotating the tertiary
mirror.
UH Hilo also has a long-slit Shelyak spectrograph with diffraction gratings that could be made available later. We are also planning to install an imaging system in piggyback to the main telescope to obtain wide-field (~2 x 2 degrees) images. We are also working with IfA-Hilo on the development of a small robotic Adaptive Optics system.
UH Hilo also has a long-slit Shelyak spectrograph with diffraction gratings that could be made available later. We are also planning to install an imaging system in piggyback to the main telescope to obtain wide-field (~2 x 2 degrees) images. We are also working with IfA-Hilo on the development of a small robotic Adaptive Optics system.
For more detailed information on the FLI CCD Camera, please click here: FLI Camera
For more detailed information on the UHHET Filters, please click here: UHHET Filters
For more detailed information on the eShel spectrograph, please click here: eShel Spectrograph
DOME
The PlaneWave telescope and its instrumentation are hosted within an AstroHaven 18-foot dome. The dome is of a "clamshell" design so there is no rotation. The sleeves can be fully open to give access to the entire sky, or partly open to protect against strong winds. The dome can be operated remotely or robotically, from the original control software, or from the telescope control software.
For more information about the AstroHaven dome, please click here: UHHET Dome
SITE
No permanent site for the Educational Telescopy has been identified yet although UH Hilo is working on a highly suitable option located near Halepohaku. (see the News section).
