www.galaxies.se - by Ivar Hamberg

THE OBSERVATORY

The observatory is situated north-east of Stockholm in a Bortle 4 sky. It houses a 12" Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and a 115mm APO refractor.

12" TELESCOPES, SC and RC.

A 12" SC Meade scope was mainly used from 1996 to 2020. It has been a true workhorse. I have repaired the electronics with the help from an expert in US, who helped me exchange some caps and other components with short  and limited lifetime. Since this upgrade was done the electronics have worked flawless! The Schmidt-Cassegrain has some limitations on resolution towards the periphery of the 24x36 mm field of my camera.

In late 2020, I have started to use a 12" Ritchey-Chrétien instrument, to get pinpoint resolution all across the 24x36 mm field. It is mounted on an EQ8-R Pro mount, and I use a QHY600M-PH camera.

The mount is computer controlled, and I normally observe directly on the computer screen. For reference, I normally use Megastar or Vickers atlas. The dome is built out of a frame of marine type plywood and water resistant masonite. It is covered with a glasfiber coating. It was built in 1998. In 2007, and also in 2020, the dome was freshed up with some new layers of glasfiber coating.

For wide field photograhy, I use an APO 115mm f/7 refractor, with an f/8  flat field corrector yielding f/5.6.

For solar observations, I use the 115mm APO with a Daystar Quark H-alpha filter and a ZWO ASI 183 MM camera. I also use a William Optics 90mm instrument when I am in my second home i Nice in France.

MY DOBSONIAN SCOPE

Observations are also made with a 17.5" Dobsonian Telescope. It was built as one of the very first highly portable Dobsonians with a truss tube. This scope can also be seen in David Kriege’s and Richard Berry’s book “The Dobsonian Telescope” where it is shown in chapter 1.3.4. The scope was first published in Telescope Making #17. It is still a pleasure to use.

OTHER OBSERVATORIES

Another observatory I have been involved in, and design responsible for, is the Lahall Observatory built in 1979-1983. It is a club observatory located outside Gothenburg. It has housed a large 150 mm refractor but has a 14" SC nowadays.. It is operated by the Astronomy Club of Gothenburg, GAK.

In the late 80’s I designed the new dome for the club observatory in Stockholm city, at “Observatorielunden”. This observatory has an old type traditional cylinder formed dome, housing a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope operated by the Stockholm Amateur Astronomers Club STAR.