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 Telescope

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Telescope

What to Expect at the Open House

The public is invited to come and wait in Room 401 for the sky to get sufficiently dark. There may be a brief (and rather informal) presentation by telescope personnel. This may be on a topical astronomical subject, astrophysical research underway within the department, or images taken previously by the UMBC telescope. There may also/instead be an opportunity to chat to other UMBC astrophysicists.

If weather conditions allow, you will invited up to the dome (perhaps in groups), and offered the opportunity to look through the telescope eyepiece at a variety of celestial objects. Please be aware of that access to the dome involves climbing two ladders. Also be aware that there are a number of issues which affect the quality of the image you are likely to see.

Due to its site (only 66m above sea level, in an urban area) and size (the primary mirror is 0.8m in diameter), dont expect to see images like those produced by the Hubble Space Telescope (2.4m diameter, above the Earth's turbulent & polluted atmosphere)! Also, note that when used for research & teaching, we rarely look through the eyepiece. To take the images such as those shown in our Image Gallery we use CCD camera's, often with exposures lasting many minutes.

Typically the public are invited to leave a couple of hours after the start of the presentation to allow our hard-working graduate students to get some much-needed sleep.