The SUNY Oneonta College Observatory is an astronomical observatory in
Oneonta,
New York
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* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
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. The observatory is home to the largest optical telescope in New York: a 1-meter (40 inch)
Newtonian reflector. It is also believed to be the one of the largest telescopes open for public observing east of the Mississippi. The telescope was constructed by
JMI Telescopes of
Lakewood, Colorado
The City of Lakewood is the home rule municipality that is the most populous municipality in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 155,984 at the 2020 U.S. Census making Lakewood the fifth most populous city in Col ...
.
The JMI website quotes the cost of the telescope at $159,000.
The JMI design is more cost-effective than other telescopes because of its
dobsonian mount
A Dobsonian telescope is an altazimuth-mounted Newtonian telescope design popularized by John Dobson in 1965 and credited with vastly increasing the size of telescopes available to amateur astronomers. Dobson's telescopes featured a simplified ...
and optical system.
SUNY Oneonta acquired the telescope in 2006 for less than $150,000.
After construction of a new dedicated observatory building, the telescope had a "first light" ceremony on May 30, 2009.
The observatory is located off the main campus of SUNY Oneonta at the Oneonta College Camp, and contains several instruments. There is a 16-inch
Meade LX200
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT) and a 14-inch
Celestron CGE1400 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, each housed under separate domes and permanently mounted. Also available for observing are two 8-inch Celestron NexStar SCTs, a 10-inch
Orion XT10
dobsonian
A Dobsonian telescope is an altazimuth-mounted Newtonian telescope design popularized by John Dobson in 1965 and credited with vastly increasing the size of telescopes available to amateur astronomers. Dobson's telescopes featured a simplified ...
, an 11-inch Celestron CGE1100, and JMI RB-66 reverse binoculars. For data acquisition, students can use a research-grade SBIG STL-1001E CCD imaging system, a high-resolution
SBIG spectrograph
An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...
, and a photoelectric
photometer
A photometer is an instrument that measures the strength of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared and including the visible spectrum. Most photometers convert light into an electric current using a photoresistor, ph ...
. The college hosts regular public viewing sessions, generally on designated dates once a month year-round.
More information, including a calendar of the public observatory nights, can be found at https://suny.oneonta.edu/college-observatory.
See also
*
List of observatories
This is a list of astronomical observatories ordered by name, along with initial dates of operation (where an accurate date is available) and location. The list also includes a final year of operation for many observatories that are no longer in ...
References
External links
SUNY Oneonta Observatory websiteCollege Camp website
{{Portal bar, New York (state), Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science
Astronomical observatories in New York (state)
State University of New York at Oneonta
Buildings and structures in Oneonta, New York