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The Observatory
The
society is fortunate to have its own observatory. It is located to the north of Letchworth at the Standalone Farm Centre which is run by Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation. The centre is off Wilbury Road, and the Postcode is SG6 4JN.
The observatory is sited at :
Lat 51o59'20" N, Long 0o14'35" W Click on the co-ordinates for a map.
The site is easily accessible by road and public transport, and has ample car parking. Additionally, the location is reasonably dark. The observatory itself is about 150m (500 feet) up a slope.
The observatory was built entirely by our members. We have some photos of its construction and opening.
It now houses an electrically driven polar aligned 14" Meade LX200GPS computer-controlled telescope. It is possible to attach cameras to the telescope, and it has a selection of eyepieces and filters.
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In addition we have the following telescopes. Items marked with a star may be hired by society members.
Reflectors
- 10" / 254 mm Meade LDX55 Schmidt Newtonian reflector on a motorised equatorial mount
- 8" / 200mm Dobsonian reflector
- 6" / 150mm f4 Orion Newtonian reflector on a Vixen alt-azimuth Porta-mount
- 6" / 150mm Dobsonian reflector
- 4.5" / 114mm f8 Meade 4504 reflector on a motorised equatorial mount
Refractors
- 4.75" / 120mm f8 Skywatcher EVOSTAR-120 refractor on a motorised equatorial mount
- 3.5" / 90mm Konus refractor on a motorised equatorial mount
- 2.75" / 70mm f10 Bresser Skylux refractor on an equatorial mount
- 2.75" / 70mm f12.9 Vixen A70lf achromatic refractor
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Our main telescope - a 14-inch Meade LX200 |
Observing Sessions
We run a programme of observing sessions during the year. They are held on Fridays, with Saturday as a back-up in case of poor weather. The sessions are normally held around the time of a New Moon, to avoid its glare drowning out other objects, though we also have some sessions specifically to observe the Moon. You can find the dates of these sessions in our Programme of activities.
We are also happy to arrange visits to the observatory for scouts and guides and for other groups. Contact us for more information. In addition, if you would like to arrange for an evening workshop on astronomy, combined with some observing if the sky is clear, then write to events-at-ldas.org.uk [Replace "-at-" with "@"]
The LDAS Pluto Hunt
2010 marked the 80th anniversary of the discovery of Pluto, and we attempted to track down this distant neighbour in our solar system, using our new main scope.
Pluto doesn't get very high into the sky, and is only properly visible during the summer months. Combined with its distance, the British weather and the problem of light pollution, it wasn't going to be easy to spot it, but we tried.
Unfortunately we didn't manage to see Pluto, but during our observing sessions we did see a huge number of distant objects, and completely disproved the idea that the limited darkness means observing is hardly worthwhile in the summer.
In July 2011, the Dawn spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Vesta to go into orbit around it for a year. We tried to commemorate this by observing Vesta.
If you'd like to take part in any of our observing sessions, or if you would like to book an astronomy evening for your group or organisation, then contact us by writing to events-at-ldas.org.uk [Replace "-at-" with "@" - This formatting is to help prevent "spam' messages.]
Our observations
page has a selection of images produced by LDAS members .
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