What are some of the specifics of the observatory?

• The main telescope is a reflecting design called Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain which uses two mirrors. It was designed and manufactured by DFM Engineering Ltd. of Colorado. Its main mirror is 60 cm (24") in diameter, giving it almost 10,000 times the light-gathering ability of the human eye!
• The telescope is equatorially mounted with computer-controlled tracking motors to compensate for the motion of the Earth, allowing it to track objects in its field of view as they appear to move across the sky.
• The refractor telescope serves to look at a wider area of the sky than the main telescope - although with less light-gathering ability from its 10 cm lens.
• The small Coronado solar telescope has a specially designed filter to allow safe viewing of sunspots and beautiful prominences along the Sun's limb during the daytime.
• The major astronomical instruments include a high-performance Apogee U6 fan-cooled CCD imager which is used to take timed exposures of astronomical objects, storing the light to build up a brighter image.
• A Shelyak LISA high luminosity spectrograph is used to record light that has been spread out into its many wavelengths.

What opportunities do students have to use the observatory?

Students can see the Events tab to stay updated on all opportunities involving the Grenfell Observatory. To ask about or create an event, contact the email shown at the bottom of the page.