The Orion Observatory
Orion Observatory is located in a semi rural country side, surrounded by mountains and
pine trees, aproximately 80 miles from Mexico City, near a resort place called Valle de
Bravo.
The coordinates are:
Longitude: 100.06 degrees west
Latitude: 19.16 degrees north
Altitude: 2183 meters above sea level.
Facilities:
The observatory is constructed on top of a massive stone and concrete water reservoir, it
has a roll on tile roof that runs on twelve 3 in. diameter casters, plus four lateral casters to
guide it laterally, it opens and closes with elbow grease via a hand crank on each side, a
future project is to install electric motors.
The observatory dimensions are: 5 meters long by 5 meters wide,and 1.80 meters high, it
has a roof covered section of 1.50 wide by 5meters long, where the main computer is
housed, along with a small library and a Bose music system, and also 4 cabinets for
accessories, plus a working bench.
The 3 concrete piers where the telescopes are mounted, do not touch the observatory floor
and are anchored to the bottom of the stone and concrete water tank, they are connected
to each other with concrete braces underwater, so to make them vibration free, this
because each pier is about 4 meters high and 50 per 50 centimeters per side.
The 3 piers are surrounded by water that probably acts like a natural vibration damper,
because there is no vibration.
The observatory also has a complete Davis Weather Station to monitor wheather and to
try to predict when the seeing will be good,( still have not been able to).
It also has an air compresor to supply regulated dry and clean air, used to blow dirt and
debris from the optics, to paint the equipment and for other chores where air is needed.
Outside of the observatory and in the post where the annemometer and wind vane are
installed, there are 3 solar panels, they are used to charge 2 automobile batteries, that
act as a backup for the weather station, for the computers, for the CCD cameras and for
the telescope mounts.
Computers:
Two desktop Pentium II computers, one with 128 megs of RAM, the other with 192
megs, both with 4 gigabyte hard disks, each also has a 100 meg Zip drive .
One Laptop Pentium computer, with 128 megs RAM and 2 gig hard drive.
CCD Cameras:
One Starlight-Xpress Framestore imaging system, that uses 3 different camera
bodies, one with the monochrome interline 500 X 256 pixel Sony chip, the second with a
One shot colour Sony chip, with a resolution of 500 X 256 pixels, and the third one,
with a 512 X 512 pixel Philips framestore chip.
One Starlight Xpress HX516 CCD camera.
One SBIG ST-4 CCD camera, used solely for guiding.
One Apogee Ap-7b, coupled to a Homeyer filterwheel equiped with True- Technology
dichroic filters, one set uses R.G.B. and the other C.M.Y. plus the infrared cut off
filters.
One Astrivid 2000 Video camera with a high resolution 12 in. T.V. Monitor, coupled to a
Snappy frame grabber and a Sony High 8 video recorder.
Software:
All the computers have mainly the same programs, and are connected to a net, so it is
possible to use any of them while imaging or giving commands to the telescopes via
Digital Voice, The Sky, Epoch 2000 and other programs.
As for processing software, the observatory uses the original Pixwin v1.2, Pixcolwin
v1.3, PixL8 v1.5, PixH5 v1.5, Superfix, Megafix, Imagen and MaximDL/CCD
Instruments:
10 in. f/20 Maksutov made by TEC, pier mounted on an Astro-Physics 1200 GTO, used
primarely for high resolution, Moon and Planetary imaging.
12 in. f/10 LX200 made by Meade, also pier mounted, used mainly for deep sky imaging
with the Ap-7b.
6 in. f12 Astro-Physics Superplanetary triplet apochromat, pier mounted on a Losmandy
HGM 200, used for visual observing and for Solar, Moon and Planetary imaging, this
O.T.A. was given as a gift to the observatory, by the well known Chinese
astrophotographer and personal friend, Mr. Joseph H.C. Liu.
5 in. f/2 Schmidt Camera, made by Celestron and mounted together with the 10 in. f/20
Maksutov, on the 1200 GTO german equatorial mount.
75mm f/16 Polarex refractor used for guiding on the 1200 GTO.
5 in. f/10 Schmidt Cassegrain by Celestron, used for solar imaging and guiding,
mounted on the 12Ó LX200.
5 in. f/9.55 Maksutov Cassegrain made by Max Bray, used for imaging and guiding,
mounted on the 6 in. f/12 Joseph H.C. Liu refractor.
Whenever you get to visit Mexico City and surroundings, you are invited to visit Orion
Observatory, so just drop a note and let me know when, and I will be happy to attend you
if possible.
Return to Eric Roel's Imaging Page.