Observatory

Osservatorio

Stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae. The Monte Lema Observatory of the “Le Pleiadi” Association is an ideal place to observe the sky.

In collaboration with the association “Le Pleiadi”

... The pleasure of stargazing

Telescope

The main instrument of the Lema Mountain observatory is a reflector telescope with a diameter of 410 mm in Cassegrain optical configuration with three focal ratios F: 10 – F: 5 – F: 3 (at the main focus) the change of focal ratio occurs with the replacement of the anterior sector of the tube and the consequent change of the secondary mirror, for the ratio F: 5 it is necessary to insert a correction unit. The optics are ceramic glass and housed in a carbon fiber tube mounted on an equatorial fork mount with movements controlled both locally and remotely via computer. The management software allows the automatic pointing of celestial objects from:

  • a racket, which contains a microprocessor to access the database of the internal computer where the objects of all the main catalogs (Messier, NGC, IC, etc.) are stored to perform the automatic pointing of this one.
  • from an external computer, to allow the operator to perform pointers through a virtual planetary type program (The Sky, Guide 8.0), by clicking on the screen on the object to be observed the telescope performs all the movements to position themselves precisely on the object (star, nebula, galaxy or other) thus exploiting all the potential gathered in the stored databases.

 

Building

The telescope housing consists of an octagonal building with an inscribed diameter of 6 meters and a gable roof.

Focal instrumentation

Set of Super Plossl Masuyama eyepieces diameter 50 mm and 31.8 mm Hi-Sis 33 CCD camera with Thomson 512 x 512 px sensor

Other functions available
  • Clockwise shift on both axes to compensate for the apparent sidereal, solar and lunar movement with automatic switching of the object speed to 10 (Sun and Moon)
  • Automatic pointing of objects in the catalog or with the digitization of celestial coordinates (equatorial or altazimuthal)
  • Compensation of mechanical bending, precession, nutation and atmospheric refraction
  • Parking the telescope with maintenance and memory storage of the coordinates of the parking position even after power off
  • Self-driving via external CCD
  • Remote control of instrument pointing and CCD image acquisition