This page is for students or others who are working on research projects in Astronomy, or would like to experience CCD imaging. The telescope that you will be remoting is a 20" Ritchey-Chreiten built by Brad Erhorn at RC Optical Systems. The CCD camera that you will be using is the Santa Barbara Instrument Groups (SBIG) STL-1301E: 1280 x 1024 chip with 16-micron pixels. It is also equiped with an internal filter wheel with either LRGB filters or UBV for research. The telescope and camera is controlled by Astronomers Control Panel, software which was written and engineered by Bob Denny. You need to have an imaging list (or log) for the evening. At the beginning, you can block off three hour blocks of time.

To remote the telescope at Elk Creek Observatory, you must first get permission by email or call Mike Ford at 785-364-2181, Ext. 6. My email address is on the main page. You must have a good working knowledge of The Sky Professional, CCD Soft, and MaxIm DL. All images will be in FITS format (you can change them later in another program).

There is no charge for use of this telescope!!! I encourage schools to use this, as well as anyone who loves astronomy!! There will always be someone in the observatory when it is in use. Also, check out our webcam on the link below.

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