Photo above by Todd Bush

Appalachian State University's Dark Sky Observatory is the research facility used by faculty and their students to conduct observational research in astrophysics. Established in 1981, the observatory is located about 20 miles northeast of Boone at an elevation of a kilometer. Far from major cities, its dark skies provide a good setting for digital imaging and spectroscopy done in stellar and extragalactic research projects. With the planned opening of the Cline Visitor Center (hopefully Spring 2009), a new public access program will bring viewing opportunities to everyone in our region.

We thank local photographer and amateur astronomer Todd Bush for providing the wonderful image at left, during a special evening at DSO. The Milky Way streams from the top of the 32-inch telescope's dome. You can even see the dark dust lanes in the Milky Way. Thanks, Todd!

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Dark Sky Observatory installs new telescope

A new telescope has been assembled at Appalachian State University’s Dark Sky Observatory with the donation of the instrument by amateur astronomer Dean Glace. The instrument is a PlaneWave 17-inch optical tube assembly on a Mathis fork mount. It replaced an older telescope in a 2.5-meter diameter Observa-Dome at DSO. The installation was done in late 2009 with a couple of nights of mount alignment and tests mid-January of this year.

Dean will use the telescope either during visits to DSO or remotely, over the Internet. It will eventually run under the Skynet queue-scheduled system, with automatic response to observe Gamma Ray Burst afterglow, when Dean is not using it for his work.

The new Dean Glace 17-inch telescope. Click on image for larger version.

Horsehead Nebula Image from new Dean Glace Telescope

The image at right is the "first light" color composite image taken the first night of use of the Dean Glace telescope.

Dean took four separate images through red, green, blue and clear (for luminance), filters. Each image was 200 seconds long. These were then aligned and combined with MaximDL to produce the color image.

This is an excellent image, especially considering that it has not been dark-subtracted or flat-fielded!

Click on the image for a high-resolution version.

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