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This site is intended for anyone interested in astronomy, and particularly anyone who would like to be a member of the Bootham School Astronomy Society. This membership is available to all members of the Bootham community, and students from other York schools who have attended the ISSP course on astronomy at Bootham. If you choose to subscribe by email, you will receive an email of any new post within about twenty four hours. There will also be twitter updates before an observatory session, and you are recommended to follow me on twitter using the button on the right of this screen.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

A new telescope for the Observatory

Meade ETX 125 AT GOTO Telescope
Meade's ATX 125 AT
Have you ever wanted to have the use of a telescope for a few nights, so that you can do some astronomy  of your own without having to wait for the observatory to open?

Thanks to a generous grant from the Alexander Trust, it will now be possible for you to borrow a very good telescope for a week at a time. In order to raise funds for future hardware, repairs and so on, there will be a hire charge of £10 per week. I'll need to take a deposit cheque of £100 as well, but this will be returned to you after you have used the telescope. For this, you will have access to a computer-driven telescope that guides you through the night sky, giving a commentary as it goes! I'll also give a twenty minute walkthrough on how to set up and care for the telescope before you leave with it. This will be ideal for a family who would like to have a star party, but it is also a telescope for the more serious observer. The optics are very good, providing clear views of planets, moons and Messier objects. For an extra £5, you can also hire out a digital camera and the necessary equipment to fit it to the telescope, and have a go at taking pictures of what you observe.
If you would like to book a week on the telescope, it will be available for hire from Monday 21st November - just email to check on availability. If I can work out how to, I'll try to install an online calendar of bookings once we get some! 

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to our stockists at Telescope House, who made a generous discount available so that we could get the most out of our budget. I found the staff very helpful and full of useful advice about what would work best for us.