About Our Seeing, Telescope, and Equipment

Seeing in the East bay is generally fair to good and seldom very good and I've never seen excellent.  Hence the area favors a telescope about 300-mm. in diameter. A refractor is best since unsteady air is made worse by a secondary pushing more light from the center disk to the first diffraction ring. The first observatory telescope was a superb 350-mm Maksutov Cassegrain.  However, the seeing never allowed the Big Mak to achieve its potential and it is now the University Of North Texas at Denton student's telescope.

My CCD is currently an SBIG STL-11000.  I started with an ST-7 which I upgraded to an ST-8E and attached a CFW-8 filter wheel.  Next came the ST-10XME with attached CFW-8A which I sold and moved up to the STL in August 2004.  I also replaced the 80-mm guide scope with a TMB 115-mm which is a fine scope in its own right.

Our rainy season goes from about November through April and averages about 18" of rain which causes the ground to expand and contract slightly requiring me to drift align the mount about three or four times annually.  We also get about 21 earthquakes weekly in our area and that also causes a slight shifting of the telescope mount.  Most of the quakes are less than 3.0 on the Richter scale.

The Technical Innovation's 10' Prodome operates very smoothly, doesn't leak a drop in heavy rains and withstood a storm in which the winds exceeded 60MPH.