MLO 16-inch Telescope

The MLO 16-inch (0.4-meter) telescope is an f/18 Cassegrain reflector manufactured by Boller & Chivens. This telescope was the first operational research telescope installed at the MLO site. Today, the facility is used primarily by undergraduate and graduate students for photometric research on relatively bright stars that require large amounts of dedicated observing time such as eclipsing binaries.

The principal auxiliary instrument for this telescope is a charge integration photoelectric photometer, which employs a thermoelectrically cooled Hamamatsu R943-02 GaAs photomultiplier tube. Standard UBVRI, Stromgren 4-color, and H-beta filter sets are available. This photometer is ideally suited for photometry of naked-eye stars since its circuitry is not subject to large paired-pulse corrections as are standard pulse counters. However, stars As faint as 10th magnitude have been observed routinely. A secondary instrument is a low-resolution spectrograph built by Boro Spotz.

The 16-inch Boller & Chivens telescope is scheduled to be replaced in late 2005 by the ULTRA 40-inch Telescope. See the link below for more details.

ULTRA 40-inch Telescope