Optical telescopes
The refractor is 20 cm in diameter and has a focal distance of 208 cm (f/ 10.4). The objective lens is a Littrow doublet, composed of an equiconvex crown glass lens and a second flint glass lens. It is mounted in a commercial equatorial mount Micron GM4000, that can be operated from the manual control and the computer. Also mounted in the same platform there are a finder (a 6 cm-diameter refractor with a focal length of 70 cm, f/11.6, giving a field of view of 130 arcmin with current eyepiece) and an astrograph (14 cm-diameter and focal length 70 cm, f/5).
It is a very special, priceless telescope. The tube and the focusing device, as well as the finder, were built in 1905 by Maurice Manent, and the main lens was built and tested by Dr. André Couder in 1932. It is older than the Waalbrug, the arch bridge over the Waal river inaugurated in 1936, that has become one of the identity signs of the city of Nijmegen. Over a hundred years old, everything is in perfect condition and fully operational. We use the telescope for solar projection observations, public observations and astrophotography.
The catadioptric telescope is a 14-inch (35.6 cm) diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain with 3.56-m focal distance (f/10), a Meade LX200GPS model. It includes a finder with 53 mm-diameter and 8x magnification. It is also mounted in a commercial equatorial mount Micron GM4000, that can be operated from the manual control and the computer. We have a few eyepieces that provide fields of view in the range 12-33 arcmin. We also have a CCD camera with a wheel of filters, model SBIG-ST-10XME, and a 2184×1472 pix (3.2 Mpix) detector covering a ~15×10 arcmin field of view. We use this telescope to teach students how to work with CCD cameras, and for a few science projects. An auto-guiding camera and a motor focuser have been installed on the telescope, enhancing its capabilities for conducting scientific observations.