Acknowledgements
Almost all of the major equipment in the Oakley Observatory (telescopes, telescope mounts, CCD cameras, computers etc.) have been purchased with funds donated to the astronomy program at Rose-Hulman. In particular, the Oakley Foundation of Terre Haute has been very generous and their support made possible the current observatory. Rose-Hulman provides the observatory with its operating budget, but there is also a need to replace or upgrade older equipment. Both hardware and software companies are constantly improving their products. It is very important to the continued operation of the observatory that our equipment does not become obsolete.
Permanently mounted telescopes inside the Oakley Observatory are ready for use on any clear night.
The mounts that point and track most of our telescopes were state-of-the-art when they were purchased. But now they have been superseded by a newer model that is faster at slewing the telescope, more accurate in pointing, can carry larger telescopes and more equipment and allows routing all of the cables through the mount. We have one of the new mounts. Replacement parts are no longer available for the old mounts. The next time a mount has an electrical problem, we will simply be without a mount.
We will soon need to replace the computers that control the mounts and allow remote operations of the telescopes, as well as the computers that we use to process images and analyze the data. The computers that we need must have fast processors, lots of RAM and large hard drives. Replacements will cost approximately $2,000 each.
There are also pieces of equipment that would enhance our observatory such as a stellar spectrometer ($4,000). The best way to ensure the continued operation of the observatory is to build an endowment specifically for the observatory.
Donations may be made to Rose-Hulman by specifying that the money go to the astronomy program. One of our largest and most consistent donors, Gene Glass of the class of 1949, was honored with the name of an asteroid (32564 Glass).
