Site
Latitude and longitude: 110:37:37W, +31:39:41N
Elevation: 1525m
Site manager: John Gross
Internet access: DSL 500kbps
Weather statistics: 300 usable nights/year, 100 photometric
Typical good seasons: Spring and Fall
The Sonoita Research Observatory, MPC code G93, located in Sonoita, AZ, is dedicated to research activities. Four astronomers are involved in the activities at SRO. Arne Henden, Director of AAVSO, Cambridge, MA. Dirk Terrell, Senior Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO. Walt Cooney, Director of Blackberry Observatory, Baton Rouge, LA. John Gross, Director of SRO, Tucson, AZ.
Current research activities include asteroid lightcurve analysis for the Photometric Survey for Asynchronous Binary Asteroids, photometric calibration of LPV fields, long term monitoring of LPV's, photometric calibration of GRB fields, discovery of LPV's in open clusters, monitoring CV's and novas, and a color survey of W UMa stars.
SRO50
Telescope
Type: Folded Newtonian
Aperture: 20" (50cm)
Focal length: 200cm
F-ratio: f/4
Focuser: Clement Bellerophon II
Filter wheel: SBIG
Camera: SBIG STL 6303
Mount
Software Bisque Paramount ME
Computer: Windows XP control, Linux
Software: The Sky, MaxIm DL, TPoint, Focus Max, ACP Observatory Control
Telecope Advocate: Richard "Doc" Kinne
Imaging
Typical seeing: 2-3
Best seeing: 1.5
Tracking limit: 5 mins per unguided exposure
Vignetting: none
Scattered light: 0.03mag across field
Image defects: some image distortion due to corrector; linear astrometry fit only good to 1arcsec. some vignetting at corners
Camera
Vendor and model: SBIG STL-6303E
Detector: KAF-06303E
Filters: U, B, V, Rc, Ic, Clear
Exposure ratios/filter: 60:3:1:0.8:1 U:B:V:R:I
Exposure time: S/N=100 at V=15 in one minute
Pixel count: 3072x2048
Pixel scale: 0.9190arcsec/pix
Field of view: 47x31arcmin
Gain: 1.38e-/ADU
Readnoise: 11.21e-
Linearity (graph)
Full well: 60K ADU
Cosmetic defects:
Dark current: 0.3ADU/pix/sec at 0C
Read time: 20sec
Shortest exposure: 0.2sec
Compressed image size: 4.7MB
QE response (graph)
Typical Use of System
Wide-field deep imaging. Nightly monitoring of targets. Deep field calibration.
Miscellaneous Notes
Image credits: John Gross