The Celestron C14 Telescopes

The Observatory has two permanently mounted C14 telescopes. Each is an optical tube assembly from the CGE 1400 series of Celestron telescopes, installed on a Bisque Paramount ME robotic-capable telescope mount.

The optical specification is 14-inch (356mm) Schmidt-Cassegrain design operating at f/11 (3910mm focal length). Custom-built dewcaps were constructed in-house.

The telescopes have Van Slyke Engineering Omega 2.7" focusers, VSE "Mega-Port Sidewinders", and matching CCD cameras installed. Each camera has 6.3 million 9x9 micron pixels in an array of 3072 x 2048 giving a field of view of 18 x 24 arcmin.

Acquired:	2006 (W), 2010 (E)
Optics:	Schmidt-Cassegrain
Aperture:	14" (356mm)
Focal Length:	154" (3910mm; f/11)
Detector:	SBIG STL-6303E CCD (3072x2048 array, 9x9 micron pixels)
Additional Instrumentation:	Van Slyke Engineering Omega 2.7" focuser, VSE "Mega-Port Sidewinder"
CCD Field of view:	18 x 24 arcmin
Controls:	Digital GoTo
Drive:	brushless DC servomotors
Mount:	Bisque Paramount ME (German Equatorial)
Filters – C14E (5-position filter wheel)	Johnson-Cousins BVRI filters from Schuler (response curves; and a more detailed discussion) –  original V filter replaced by a near equivalent from Norman Walker; Hα filter from Custom Scientific (4.5nm bandwidth, peak transmission 0.90). Each 4mm thick, 48–50mm diameter.
Filters – C14W (8-position filter wheel)	Custom Scientific LRGB; Johnson-Cousins RI filters from Astrodon (response curves); Hα filter from Astrodon (6nm bandwidth). Each 3mm thick, 50mm diameter
Spectrograph – C14E	The C14E is equipped, on an experimental basis, with a Shelyak Lhires III spectrograph, with a fibre feed designed and constructed by Nic Clarke. Stephen Boyle's commissioning-phase report is available, characterizing the system prior to the fibre feed (which leaves many properties unaffected).
ED80 – C14W	An Explore Scientific ED80 f/6 apochromatic refractor is piggybacked on the C14W, for wide-field imaging.