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The Madawaska Highlands Observatory telescope shown (without dome) on its one tyne equatorial
mount.
The Madawaska Highlands Observatory, launched in October 2007, promises
to be the most important telescopes in Canada. To be located in
the Madawaska Highlands in eastern Ontario, one of the darkest
and accessible areas in southern Canada; the Madawaska Highlands Observatory will be a world-class
facility and perform as one the best one metre telescopes in the
world.
This state-of-the-art observatory will be equipped with the latest
advanced technologies. Such as active optics, carbon fibre sandwich
core optical tube assembly, ultra-light vented cellular ribbed
open-backed mirrors, fast fully corrected wide field optics, ultra
large monolithic CCD imager, extensive baffling and advanced control
electronics. The telescope will have a useful spectral range of
380-1100nm with u', g', r', i', z' filters. The observatory is
fully automated and designed to be a high throughput instrument
with superb wide field imaging. Careful attention is paid to achieving
the optimum local seeing with an advanced carbon fibre composite
core dome with rapid ambient temperature tracking and vented telescope
mount. The observatory will be energy self-sufficient operating
on solar and wind power.
With its fast one metre f/2.5 mirror the Madawaska Highlands Observatory will employ the
largest monolithic CCD chip in the world. The camera mounted prime
focus has 9u-0.76 arcsec/pixel pitch with 95.22 x 95.22 mm imaging
surface yielding an image plane of 2.22º X 2.22º with
a total field of view of 4.85 deg². The specifications are
also superb, cooled to -100ºC with 1e-/pix/hr of dark noise,
<4e- of read noise, 16 bit sampling, 80,000e- full well capacity
and ~90% quantum efficiency. The instrument will use the u', g',
r', i', z' filters for maximum throughput and standardization.
The 10580 x 10560 array of 112 million pixels can be read out
in 2 seconds through its 16 ports.
The site has excellent horizon exposure, a southern horizon
of -45º declination and a sky brightness of 21.9 mag/arcsec²
(r') with expected seeing of ~1.25 arcsec. Because of its excellent
dark site, innovative materials and advanced design; this telescope
is expected to outperform much larger established instruments.
The Madawaska Highlands Observatory should reach magnitude 24 (r') in a 315 second exposure
and magnitude 26 (v) in 12,000 seconds. Photometrically Madawaska Highlands Observatory is
expecting 1σ = 0.002 magnitude in 3000s for a magnitude 19
(r') star and 1σ = 0.0010 magnitude in 4000s for 18th mag
(r') star.
The Madawaska Highlands Observatory's ~200 kg Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) will be built with
an advanced carbon fibre sandwich core yielding a light, ultra
rigid structure. It will be dimensionally stable thanks to its
low temperature expansion coefficient. The forced air vented 68
kg ultra-light f/2.5 primary mirrors will be made of Borofloat
with an open back cellular rib structure, thus enabling extremely
rapid tracking of ambient temperature. The OTA will employ active
optics, thus maintaining collimation, focus and enhancing pointing
accuracy throughout the entire sky. Extensive baffling will be
used to minimize stray light and enhance contrast. Flap doors
will be used on the primary mirror and corrector lens.
Having a low mass OTA will permit the use of a one tyne fork
equatorial mount. The high performance control electronics and
high torque servo motors can slew at 3 degrees/second, can point
to anywhere in the sky to within 5 arcsec rms and track to 0.05
arcsec. The periodic error is only 2 arcsec peak-to-peak. The
Madawaska Highlands Observatory is to be an autonomous observatory; all observations are scripted
in advance, this will permit maximum use of the sky conditions.
With its ultra wide-field of view of almost five degrees the Madawaska Highlands Observatory
can serve as a powerful survey tool able to image over five thousand
square degrees per night to magnitude 22 (r'). The field fully
corrected to 135 mm image circles with a triplet lens.
The fully automated dome is made of carbon fibre composite sandwich
core, elevated off the ground with 3 metres of free space for
smooth air flow and designed with rapid ambient temperature tracking,
resulting in the best possible local seeing. A significant amount
of computing power will be available on site for special projects.
A multi-megabit high speed link will be available for communications
and file downloads, thus astronomers can access their data immediately.
The Madawaska Highlands Observatory management team is proud to offer all Canadians an opportunity
to participate in this unique state-of-the-art telescope initiative
Next: Specifications
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