New Millennium Observatory

Advanced Research in Observational Astrophysics

On September 18, 2002, a dream becomes a reality. The New Millennium Observatory sees the first light.
After about an hour of instruments set-up, polar alignment and gear mapping of the Paramount ME robotic mount, an Apogee Ap47p CCD camera is applied to the Celestron 14 OTA.

The telescope slews rapidly to the gamma Andromedae for a brief focusing session and therefore to the spiral galaxy NGC 891 in Andromeda to take a 60-seconds exposure.

Even if the observing run was under a very poor sky conditions, this is the first image of the New Millennium Observatory.

The image is absolutely raw: neither dark+bias, nor flatfield has been applied.

For any information about the New Millennium Observatory or this web page, please send an e-mail to  Dr. Elia Cozzi

Latest update: 13-09-10