October 2000 - under construction- hope to have some pictures soon
Telescope and CCDs:
We have a 0.4meter (16 inch) Meade LX200 telescope. This is mounted in a telescope dome dating back to the 1930's right across the street from the high rise dormitories on the OU campus! Not the best observing site!
We have had an SBIG ST8 CCD for several years. We recently were able to acquire a Apogee AP7p CCD. The AP7p has over twice the sensitivity (quantum efficiency) of the ST8, and we are eager to start using it. We hope to have a report on an actual "real life" comparison of the ST8 and AP7p soon.
Computers and Software:
At the observatory, we have a motley collection of "old" Pentiums. These machines may not be the latest and fastest, but they are extremely useful. That is because they run LINUX, and are configured with the same software (IRAF, STSDAS) used by astronomers at observatories around the world.
A digression on software and computers by Dr. Bill: When I was a grad student (1970's) I had to come in to work at 1AM so that I could use the image processing computer at Kitt Peak (in image processing mode, only one user could use it at once!). This computer was a multimillion dollar CDC 6600 mainframe. Today, for the cost of a years worth of college textbooks, anyone can buy a desktop PC that far outperforms the CDC 6600 for image processing. Anyone with such a PC can load it up with LINUX, IRAF, STSDAS, and other free software and have an extremely powerful image processing system that would have cost the same as a good size college *BUILDING* 2 decades ago. We live in marvelous times!