at the
University of Western Ontario
In 1969 the 1.2 meter telescope was erected by Boller & Chivens at our Elginfield site 25 km north of the campus:
Longitude = 5h 25m 16s west Latitude = + 43o 12.0'
Funding for the facility came from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and from the province of Ontario.
The Ritchey-Chretien optics give the telescope a large 1.25-degree field at the Cassegrain focus. The secondary mirror is figured on both sides; f/8.3 for the Cassegrain focus and f/30.5 for the coude focus. The instrument also has a Nasmyth focus (the Nasmyth mounting ring is the black disk on top of the polar axle in the picture). The reflecting surface of the primary mirror is bare aluminum, while the secondary and the coude mirrors have over-coated silver that reach 98% reflectivity across much of the spectrum.
We have several Cassegrain instruments, including a spectrograph, polarimeter, and two-star photometer. At the coude focus we have one of the best spectrographs around. With a resolving power ~ 105, we are able to resolve and analyze spectral lines in most stars. We can study stellar rotation, granulation, macroturbulence, stellar surface features, magnetic cycles, as well as measure precise stellar temperatures. The diagram below (from The Observation and Analysis of Stellar Photospheres) shows how the starlight is sent to the coude focus.
Elginfield Observatory was officially closed in about 2011.
On the UWO campus, we still have the Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory that is used primarily for undergraduate courses and Public Nights and Open Houses.