| Organization | Astronomical Society of Harrisburg |
|---|---|
| Location | Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Coordinates | 40°08′49″N76°53′56″W / 40.1469°N 76.8989°W Coordinates: 40°08′49″N76°53′56″W / 40.1469°N 76.8989°W |
| Altitude | 170 m (560 ft) |
| Established | 1955 |
| Website | Naylor Observatory |
  Location of Naylor Observatory | |
Naylor Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Astronomical Society of Harrisburg. It is located near Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, United States. [1]
The Astronomical Society of Harrisburg (ASH) was formed in 1955. [2] It is one of the oldest astronomical societies in the country. [3] One of its original goals was to construct a local observatory. The members first constructed a 12.5" Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain telescope to place in the new observatory. They then attempted to purchase a plot of land for $1000. This plot of land was discovered to be adjacent to a to-be-built night club and the money was refunded.
The society learned a valuable lesson and planned the observatory out more accurately. The present property, two miles northwest of Lewisberry, was acquired in 1966. Since the society had not had an established history, even with 60 members acquiring funding for the construction became an issue. Nonetheless, the French Dome, the observatory's first building, was completed in 1967. [4] [5] The society spent the next 5 years, ending in 1971, raising money to fund the observatory's initial construction. By 1987, the Asper operations/administration building, telescope viewing pads, and several telescope storage buildings were constructed. [2] [6]
The club continued expanding and in 1979 a 12.5" Cave Astrola Newtonian reflecting telescope was installed in the Culver roll-off observatory. In the 1990s, a 17" classical Cassegrain reflector replaced the second telescope, a 16" Newtonian, that had been housed in the French Dome observatory. A second roll-off observatory was constructed in 2005. The King roll-off observatory features 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric telescopes manufactured by Celestron and Meade. A third roll-off observatory, which houses another 14" Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric intended for CCD imaging, was constructed in late 2013. ASH also owns a number of smaller telescopes, including a 40mm Coronado PST hydrogen-alpha solar telescope, 6 and 8" Dobsonian reflectors, a 10" Cave Astrola Newtonian, and a 10" Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric. [2]
The Newtonian telescope, also called the Newtonian reflector or just the Newtonian, is a type of reflecting telescope invented by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), using a concave primary mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror. Newton's first reflecting telescope was completed in 1668 and is the earliest known functional reflecting telescope. The Newtonian telescope's simple design has made it very popular with amateur telescope makers.
The Maksutov is a catadioptric telescope design that combines a spherical mirror with a weakly negative meniscus lens in a design that takes advantage of all the surfaces being nearly "spherically symmetrical". The negative lens is usually full diameter and placed at the entrance pupil of the telescope. The design corrects the problems of off-axis aberrations such as coma found in reflecting telescopes while also correcting chromatic aberration. It was patented in 1941 by Russian optician Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov. Maksutov based his design on the idea behind the Schmidt camera of using the spherical errors of a negative lens to correct the opposite errors in a spherical primary mirror. The design is most commonly seen in a Cassegrain variation, with an integrated secondary, that can use all-spherical elements, thereby simplifying fabrication. Maksutov telescopes have been sold on the amateur market since the 1950s.
The Schmidt–Cassegrain is a catadioptric telescope that combines a Cassegrain reflector's optical path with a Schmidt corrector plate to make a compact astronomical instrument that uses simple spherical surfaces.
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