AstroOnline | The Hawley Observatory

Finally - a close look at this place. The page may take some time to load, please be patient.

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The driveway up to the observatories.

First stop: the charthouse, where we sign in, grab some hot chocolate, bundle up, grab a flashlight, and then head up to the domes.

The path up to the domes was a little treacherous this winter...

Some people have been known to crash into this sculpture when it is dark.

Ah... there's Lowell Observatory and dome five. Lowell houses our refractor telescope (FC125) and dome five will house the 0.7 meter alumni telescope.

Here's the lineup of domes; from foreground to background, Dome 2, Dome 3, Lowell, Dome 5.

This is may have used to have been an observing pad, but now it is home to electronics and telecommunications equipment.

A closeup of dome two, which houses a reflecting telescope.

Here it is in resting position.

Here it is looking out at the sky.

All the domes are outfitted with laptops, systems for directing the telescope, fiber optic networking, and speakers, so we can play music!

Soon to come will be a bluetooth network and palm pilot for each dome to make telescope operation easier.

A closeup of dome three, which houses a telescope similar to the one in dome two.

Here's a view of the dome two reflecting telescope.

Right now, it's taking pictures of the sun, so there's a filter on.

A closeup of the filter.

From a distance, dome three taking pictures of the sun.

Here's Lowell again.

And here is the FC125 refracting telescope inside Lowell.

Looking out into the heavens...

The system for the telescope's motors to interact with the computer.

We have an eyepiece projection system and a rotating eyepiece system to be used with the scope.

Some of the eyepieces for the projection system.

Here's dome five again.

This telescope is taking a turn while waiting for the 0.7 meter Alumni telescope to arrive.

The Alumni Telescope will be BIG; you can see its mount here.

The operations room for the Alumni telescope.

This seems to be a weather observing station of some sort, but none of the students actually know. Maybe Doc could tell us.

The observatory is also home to the SCOLA satellites which bring in multilingual television for the foreign language department.

This is "dome" one; it will act as the computer center for the 0.7 meter alumni telescope when it arrives, but meanwhile, it's just the home of the machine shop and some computers.