TELESCOPES AND SCIENCE EQUIPMENT

Tenagra Observatories is a complex of privately owned telescopes in S. Arizona, Oregon, Perth, Australia and Oslo, Norway and perhaps the largest of its kind in the world. Tenagra already has research partnerships with Lick Observatory, USNO and other institutions of note. Tenagra is well known for its photometric studies and supernovae/minor planet (MPC codes 848 and 926) discoveries. The observatory complexes currently have two telescopes: 0.81-m (32") F7 Ritchey-Chretien and a 0.36-m (14") F11 Schmidt-Cassegrain.  Other telescopes have been purchased and are in various states of readiness for placement and testing.

Tenagra I

While updated, these configuration is very close to the original Tenagra I telescope.  It consists of a 0.36-m (14") F11 SCT on an excellent GOTO mount.  In Oregon, Tenagra I is under a roll-off roof.  This telescope is rarely used for photometric work.  This is reserved for the larger telescope.  It is usually used for minor planet/comet studies and education.

Tenagra II

This is the heaviest hitter in the Tenagra arsenal of telescopes.  It is a 0.81-m (32") F7 Ritchey-Chretien of extraordinary design.  This telescope cannot be used visually.  The science camera resides in the instrument bay.  This is the only production telescope designed specifically for automation and has proven itself to be a telescope of unbelievable pointing and track accuracy.  The picture below is taken through a wide angle lens at the slit of a dome that is only 14.5 feet in diameter, a very small enclosure for a telescope of this aperture.  The bearing at the bottom of the picture is RA axis.  As such the telescope moves left-right for RA change.  In the center of the photograph the DEC axis can be seen, moving the telescope in and out of the photograph, so to speak.  This mount is 100% friction driven.  Images can easily reach nearly 22nd magnitude in a single 300 second unguided unfiltered exposure:

Filters

All Tenagra telescopes are for automated imaging.  There is no photoelectric photometry via multipliers.  We have though the best possible filters for Tenagra II.  These are standard Johnson-Cousins with Bessel prescription.  The measured transmission curves are shown below.  Commercial users of Tenagra telescopes are welcome to provide their own 50mm (round or square) filters.

[Click Here For A Measured Transmission Graph of Tenagra II Filters]

Science Cameras

All cameras used at Tenagra Observatories are based on SITe 1K X 1K X 24u chips.  This provides the highest amount of quantum efficiency and each camera at Tenagra is interchangeable.  The cameras for all Tenagra telescopes have liquid heat removal allowing a constant temperature of -45 degrees C. independent of ambient temperature.  This assures that ambient temperature changes do not affect critical photometric measurements.

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