Telescopes
The observatory originally contained the Rayna Telescope, an 18 inches (460 mm) newtonian reflector on a fork mount, this was dedicated to long standing member Ray Jackson and his wife Ina. The telescope was built by Peter Drew of the Amateur Astronomy Centre, Todmorden. It was based around a 18 inch f/4.5 parabolic mirror ground by John Owen. Whilst in use the Rayna telescope was the largest telescope open to the public in South Yorkshire.
The observatory currently contains a Takahashi TOA-130F 130 millimetres (5.1 in) f/7.6 apochromatic refractor and a Celestron C14-AF XLT 14 inches (360 mm) f/11 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a Software Bisque Paramount goto mount. These were purchased to replace the Rayna telescope.
Other telescopes include a 60 millimetres (2.4 in) Coronado SolarMax H-alpha telescope on a Vixen GPDX German Equatorial mount with a SkySensor 2000 goto system for Solar Observing.
Read more about this topic: Mexborough & Swinton Astronomical Society