Edward J. Rowe Observatory

 

The Edward J. Rowe Observatory, named after my grandfather. The building is a 10'x10' structure with a roll-off roof, which, at the time this picture was taken, contained a Tele Vue Genesis SDF 4" f/5.4 refractor and either a Vixen R200SS 8" f/4 Newtonian or a Vixen VC200L 8" f/9 Cassegrain on a Losmandy Titan mount. The CCD camera is a Starlight Xpress SXV-H9 with a Homeyer filter wheel. The rig is autoguided using an SBIG STV. The observatory is wired into my home computer network and can be remotely controlled from anywhere in the house.

This picture shows a Tele Vue NP127is and an SBIG STL11000M as they are currently set up in my observatory. They are mounted side-by-side with a Vixen R200SS 8" f/4 Newtonian. A Tele Vue TV-60is 60mm f/6 refractor is mounted above, where it does double duty as a guidescope with an SBIG STV, or as the ultimate wide-field imaging rig. This load is comfortably carried by the Losmandy Titan mount.

For a real hoot, you can look at all the cables connected to the instruments above. The pier is a 4" concrete and rebar-filled steel pipe, anchored in 4 tons of concrete. It doesn't move. All the cables are routed in 2" conduit under the observatory floor.

This is an earlier photo, when the observatory contained a AP130 5"f/6 refractor and a C14 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on an AP1200 telescope mount owned by my good friend Ed Siemenn. This shot shows the roll-off roof a bit better.

We occasionally get a fair amount of snow here in Warwick, but that doesn't keep me from imaging. Once I rake off the roof and roll it open, I retreat inside the house and sit next to the woodstove with my laptop and a cup of cocoa and do my imaging remotely. At that point I only go outside to acquire a new target. (I prefer to be present when the mount is slewing, just call me superstitious.)

I had an interesting guest here during NEAF2003! John Dobson was a speaker at NEAF2003 and was my guest here in Warwick. We had a clear night, in which we did a little bit of observing.