Cali Kid Corals

See where I work! (youtube)

sfsuphysics

Supporting Member
So here's a random guy who stopped by on our Pre-halloween night party which was also the re-grand opening of our old telescope. The story goes it has been non-operational since before I started working there, the dome part didn't rotate.... however we were not allowed to try to fix it, because the structure is physically connected to the roof and as such only buildings and grounds was allowed to work on it, and that was a rather low priority for them (i.e. non-priority for them). So yeah that huge fluster cluck of a bureaucracy pretty much left us without our observatory... we did have quite a few portable scopes though which are nice (nicer in fact that that one, while not as large they are about 4 decades newer). Well apparently one of our students with a bit of an engineering background took a look and worked on pieces when he could, and manage to fix the sucker... yeah he wasn't supposed to, but we got fed up with the crap and told him to go ahead.

So now we have a 4 decade old telescope :D Wednesday some of the helpers had it pointed at Jupiter and one of my students who was there told me it looked clearer through the portable ones I setup.. I told him... 4 decades, there is a world of issues that can come up.

Anyways, I found this video amusing because I work there, you... eh maybe not so much :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2dUPOA1_qo
 
Not sure exactly... but IMO that 14" is already there, with a 25mm eyepiece we get about as good as we can, with a 10mm eyepiece all we have is magnified fuzz, not sure of the focal length of it though. Now obviously that depends upon the actual conditions, but at CCSF conditions are mediocre on the best of nights.

However being as we are a community college, with no real research going on, I doubt we'll see any sort of adaptive optics hookups in the near (or long) future. Besides there are plenty of decent observatories within driving distance if anyone needed to do any sort of real research.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not sure exactly... but IMO that 14" is already there, with a 25mm eyepiece we get about as good as we can, with a 10mm eyepiece all we have is magnified fuzz, not sure of the focal length of it though. Now obviously that depends upon the actual conditions, but at CCSF conditions are mediocre on the best of nights.

However being as we are a community college, with no real research going on, I doubt we'll see any sort of adaptive optics hookups in the near (or long) future. Besides there are plenty of decent observatories within driving distance if anyone needed to do any sort of real research.

Mt Hamilton?

http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/ :) That place has quite the history for those that don't know... I mean, looks who it's named after ;)
 
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