in italiano

Grange Observatory

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The Grange Observatory lies atop a private house in Bussoleno (50 km W from Turin, Italy), in Susa Valley near the French border; Grange comes from the name of the town's suburb.
The observatory's roll-off roof opens in two parts and covers a 3 m by 3 m room; the homemade telescope is a 0.3 m Newton-Cassegrain f/4 - f/31 (focal lenghts respectively of 1.2 m and 9.3 m) originally guided by a Vixen refractor ø 80 mm f/11 with an illuminated eyepiece adjustable within 1° from the scope axis.
Completes the instrumentation a Vixen NA 140 Petzval (or double achromat) refractor, currently replacing the guidescope, plus a Philips SPC900NC modified webcam and a Point Grey Chameleon camera along with a Nikon D3000 DSLR, all connected to a Samsung N140 netbook.

The main instrument is permanently mounted on a concrete pillar and is independent from the room's floor; the observing site can be reached via a foldable ladder from a room devoted to laboratory / library.
The telescope originally had a DOS based SXL8 CCD camera connected to a 486 DX2 computer with CD-ROM drive, this one being useful for having a quick access to huge star catalogues and sky surveys such as GSC-ACT, Tycho and USNO A2.0: the field given by the cameras was barely 22x22 arcmin and the faintest stars recorded were about magnitude 17 (15 magn. was reached with 1 minute exposure).
Nowadays the CCD 16x24 mm sensor of Nikon D3000 is used, giving a 68x45 arcmin star field containing asteroids of up to magnitude 19 (the 15th magnitude is reached with a 30 s exposure).

The main research activity is astrometry and Grange Obs. is one of the observatories appointed by I. A. U.'s Commission 20 which send their measures to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams/Minor Planet Center, located at Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA (U.S.A.).
Grange Obs. is also one of the observing sites of Gruppo Italiano Astrometristi, the Italian Astrometry Group, which coordinates all the astrometric activity done in Italy by amateur astronomers, and is a proud member of Spaceguard Foundation.

Technical description:

Go to the AAS homepage, the local amateur association (in Italian).
Return to Grange Obs. homepage.