Other members of the Doc G Research Observatory. Doc with these four friends created the concept of a new observatory in the Spring of 2005. Left to right are Mark Hanson, Matt Mills, Dennis Roscoe and in front Greg Sellek.
The picture was taken right after installation of the Paramount ME 4000 mount. Dr. Dennis Roscoe has provided the location for the building and had it built professionally. It is located on his 5 acre estate in Middleton, Wisconsin. This a convenient location for the other members of the GRO team. Everyone is ten to twenty minutes away. The observatory is of course remotely controlled via the internet. Thus location is of less consequence. The installation of the mount was a great day in the starting up of the observatory.
The above shown members of the GRO team each have special interests and abilities that contribute to the success of the GRO. Mark Hanson on the left is the specialist in deep space imaging. He has an extensive portfolio of award winning images. Matt Mills in the center top is mainly interested in minor planets, nova and comets. He is a regular contributor to the Minor Planet Project and uses the 16" scope extensively for minor planet searching.
Greg Sellek is the computer expert who keeps everything running. The system is quite complex with three telescopes, the Paramount, two observatory computers an independent solar scope and mount and all of the related software and communications equipment. Greg has been indispensable to keeping this milage of equipment running. He is also an avid seeker of minor planets and takes fine deep sky images as well.
Dr. Dennis Roscoe designed and built the building for the GRO observatory and provides its home on his property. He too is a computer expert and has a great interest in deep space imaging. He provides the loacal tender loving care that keeps everything running smoothly.
Actually there is still a small bit of room in the mount for a few more cables and tubes. These will be to carry dry air and cooled water to the cameras and telescopes. These amenaties are necessary for some weather conditions. The heat and humidity of summer are two. Also, getting the camera chips down to -30 C all of the time requires additional cooling for the STL cameras.
It only took a few months after installation of the Paramount to get it loaded with equipment. At the right Doc G stands next to the pier and mount which is shown dripping with various power and control cables. There is a lot of equipment on this mount. The main large telescope is the 16" Type R scope from Meade. A second major instrument is the TMB 130 f 6. Both OTAs carry STL cameras chosen specifically for the type of work being done with these two telescopes.
Directly below Doc G is shown at the back of the telescopes with the two STL cameras. He is thinking "Nice cameras, we may need a few more. There is still room in the mount for some more cables." Actually, the Paramount is getting nearly full of cables. There are cables for two STL cameras, (both power and USB cables) spare power and USB for a third camera which can be used for guiding or imaging, two auto-focusers, power for dew heaters, power for the cooler booster system used in the heat of summer (not shown in this photo) and fan control for the 16" telescope.
There is a third telescope barely visible next to the TMB which is an Orion 10 mm ED. It is used for guiding the mount. This scope guides using the external guider camera which is an attachment to the STL on the TMB.
Stability of the mount and telescopes is very good. One hour guided exposures show no elongated stars or other image artifacts.
The array of scopes is shown here fron the front with the scopes in the parked position. The largest telescope is a 16" LX200R Type scope. This scope has the new seudo RC design. It is reduced in focal length with a 0.75 reducer from e Astro Physics. The final focal length is 3000 mm at a focal ratio of f 7.5. The scope carries an STL1001 camera shich was chosen specifically for asteroid searching. The STL1001 has 24 micron picels for good sensitivity and a field of 1.4 arc seconds per pixel. The STL has a 1 Meg pixel chip. The light gathering power of the 16" aperture combined with the sensitivity of the chip allows finding asteroids a dim as Mag20 with reasonable 3 to 5 minute exposures. The 16" scope is used regularly for minor planet searching, nova searching and comet imaging. Several hundered minor planet confirmations are attained every year.
The telescope immediately below the large telescope is a 130 mm TMB with a focal ratio of f 6. It has an integral field flattener and carries an STL11000. The STL11000 chip has 11 Megpixels of 9 micron size. The STL also has the large 8 position filter wheel which is provided with the standard LRGB filters plus a narrow band set of filters including the Ha, SIII and OIII filters. Thus the telescope can be used for both normal color imaging and narrow band imaging without changing the setup mechanically. This is important since the telescopes are operated remotely.
In only a period of a few months the GRO observatory was fitted out with a nice array of equipment. Shown on these pages is Doc G enjoying looking over the equipment it its several stages of installation
Doc G shown in many of the photos is a retired professor of electrical and computer engineering. He has had many years of experience in all aspects of astronomy. Specializing in digital signal processing, control systems and digital control, he has been a driving force in making the equipment extensive, versatile and complex. From issues like a fail safe roll off roof for the building to remote control of all of the observatory power equipement, he has devised a number of useful and unique pieces of electrical equipment for the observatory. There is no piece of equipment that we should not have or that cannot be made better is his mantra.
The emphasis of his contributions has been to see to it that all equipment is set up in such a way that it can be computer controlled locally and remotely. There is still much to do with getting all of the equipment working all of the time. But good progress is being made