The Observatory Telescope

An octagonal stairway leads to the observing level where a state-of-the-art, robotic, thermally stabilized, 610mm f/6.5 corrected Dall-Kirkham PlaneWave reflecting telescope provides unparalleled image sharpness. Its design eliminates off-axis coma and astigmatism and delivers a perfectly flat field, ensuring images are sharp and detailed across the entire field of view. Its primary fused silica mirror is 610mm across and bounces light to a 287mm secondary mirror, traveling a total of 3962 mm (13 feet) to generate pinpoint stars across a 70mm imaging circle, resulting in stunning, flat fields of view for visual observations or astrophotography.

The telescope mount, exactly aligned to the Earth’s rotational axis, uses direct drive motors and high-precision encoders with 18,880,000 counts, for incredible pointing and drive accuracy—akin to pointing at a soccer ball 90 miles away—and very fast slew speeds enabling satellite tracking.

The computer control system, along with its extensive catalogues, allows the telescope to accurately point to over 88 million stars and more than 500,000 deep sky objects, bringing the visible universe within reach from the beauty of Moosehead Lake. An array of visual observing, CMOS and CCD imaging cameras, photometric filters, and spectroscopy equipment can be added to the telescope. This setup allows for a range of astronomy activities, from casual stargazing to astrophotography and science projects.