The Hampden-Sydney College Observatory houses a new 17 inch Ritchey-Critien telescope and mount from Planewave Optics. It includes a climate controlled room for computers and on-site observers.

The observatory is used on clear nights for projects in our astronomy classes, student research projects, and community observing. Our current plans are to integrate the observatory into the SkyNet telescope control system through the for fully automated control. This will enable the telescope to be used more efficiently, because it will not need to be staffed in order to be observing the sky.

Weather chart

  • 17" Planewave telescope on its pillar mount inside the observatory at H-SC

    The 17" Planewave telescope on its pillar mount is located inside the observatory dome.

  • image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, a spiral galaxy much like our own, taken by telescope

    This is a three-color image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, a spiral galaxy much like our own. It was observed with the IR filter (shown as red), the G (green), and the H-α narrow band filter (blue).

  • image of the Dumbbell Nebula, a planetary nebula, taken by telescope

    This is an image of the Dumbbell Nebula, a planetary nebula. It was observed with the R filter (red), the G filter (green), and the H-α filter (blue). The H-α images took the longest to exposure, with an integration time of 1000 seconds, or 16 minutes and 40 seconds.

Telescope Specifications

17" Planewave Telescope
Focal Ratio f/6.8
Diameter 17 inches 432 mm
Effective Focal Length 115.71 inches 2939 mm
Apogee Alta U47+ Camera
Pixels per side 1024
Pixel Size 13 microns
Chip Size 13312 microns 1.331 cm
Plate Scale 0.91 arcsec/pixel
Field of View 934 arcsec 15.6 arcmin