New Millennium Observatory

Advanced Research in Observational Astrophysics

I think that there are no words to describe this state-of-the-art mechanical and electronic jewel. For any kind of information please look at Software Bisque web site about Paramount ME.

After many months of analysis for any kind of mount on the market, my choice was Paramount ME. There is no other mount so technological and update as Paramount ME.

Since the first night I used the mount I understood that it was a real dream for its capability to point the astronomical objects. Since the summer of 2004 I use the Paramount ME every clear night to point toward any region in the sky and its ability and precision to point an object is really amazing.

Every night a switch on the Paramount ME and the computer that manages it: the only thing I do is to synchronize the internal watch of the computer with a radio-controlled watch, than I establish a connection between the mount and TheSky and, after homing, I can point any object all over the sky with a precision of 40arcsec. I do no synchronization of the Paramount with stars, just linking the mount with TheSky is enough to point with very sharp precision any astronomical object in the sky, even if due to bad weather condition I switch on the Paramount after many days of not use.

I am sure that with a better T-Point model this precision can be sharper, but at the present it is more than what I really need: my CCD field is 821x821 arcsec so with an error of only 35arcsec, the pointed object is always very near the center of the field.

I spent sometimes to align the mount as close as possible to the celestial north pole. The first time I set up the mount I used a 6-points T-Point model, than I used more and more points. The latest alignment correction, in July 2005, was the result of a 120-points model.

The present model use more than 180 points and the polar alignment error is around 10 arcsec in altitude and azimuth with a sigma around 4 arcsec.

Every full moon night or hazing night I add more points to this model to get an even sharper pointment precision and better polar alignment. To do this I use Automapper: a software that interact with TheSky and CCDSoft to build up a T-Point model sampling all over the sky.

It works quite well even if I have some problem getting astrometric data from the field caught by the CCD camera. I am not able to find the reasons of this difficulty, but in any case it is not so bad: the ratio between mapped and pointed positions is around 30%.

The floor of the dome is a wood lattice structure independent from the main walls. In the middle of this structure the pier for the telescope has been placed.

It is a conic section tube, made of building iron, with a base plate of 70-cm diameter and a top plate of 40-cm diameter. The lower and upper diameter of the conic tube is 50-cm and 30-cm respectively.

The pier, which is 3-m high, has been anchored to the main structure of the building by 16 10-mm diameters bolts. Between the pier and the concrete a sheet of anti-vibrations rubber has been placed.

Inside the pier I put a concrete mixture of Leca (expanded clay) and cement..

On the top of the pier, Roberto, a friend of mine very fond of extravagant mechanical solutions, realized a plate to match the Paramount holding holes and the holes of the pier with a system to easy level the telescope mount.

Celestron C14

This is absolutely one of the most difficult choices: what is the best instrument for an observatory? The main problem is always the same: the price! As you probably know, the collecting area of a telescope is proportional to the square of the diameter and the price in proportional to the cube or more of the diameter!

When I was at Guillermo Haro Observatory in Cananea, Mexico, along with a 2.52-m telescope I used a Meade LX200 16” telescope. The optical quality was quite good (even if the movement of primary mirror was very uncomfortable), the sky conditions were excellent, with a very good seeing and a very deep transparency.

What about the "Pianura Padana" sky?

I made a series of tests and I concluded that the best quality/price ratio in for telescopes around 14” class and the only commercial telescope of this size, in summer 2002, was Celestron 14 (now there is also the Meade 14”).

I know that there are some top quality telescope such as Optical Guidance Systems or RC Optical Systems that produce some state-of-the-art Ritchey-Chretien OTA, but they are much more expensive than C14 and, which is important, do not forget the installation site: a very good mount makes the difference both from the centre of a light polluted city and from the best astronomical place, but a top class optics with a perfect diffraction patterns placed in a region where the seeing is about 4-arcsec is probably not really the best solution.

Now, please allow myself some polemics on the price of the OTA. In Italy there is an exclusive dealer for Celestron and a lot of dealer that have to buy the telescope from the exclusive one. In July 2002 the best Italian price for the OTA was around 8500-9000 €, so it is more than double the price in the US. So I decided to a do-it-by-myself import. I wrote to some US dealers (Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazine have a lot of advertisements of these telescope dealers) and asking to Software Bisque, that furnished the Paramount ME, I got a wonderful price of 4000$ ready for shipment.

In less than 10 days the Celestron 14 was at my door with shipping and custom duties paid.

All in all I paid 5500 €.

If all the Italian amateur astronomers should buy any kind of telescope, eyepiece, or astronomical accessory directly in the US, probably the Italian dealers will lower the prices!

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