The 1.8-meter (72 inch) Perkins Telescope

For our observing run, we will be using Lowell Observatory's 1.8-meter Perkins Telescope. It is located at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station south of Flagstaff. The 1.8-meter telescope has a long history. The mount and original mirror were first constructed in 1931 in Delaware, Ohio, and at the time it was the 3rd largest telescope in existence. For over six decades it was operated by Ohio Wesleyan University. In 1964 it was moved to Lowell Observatory and three years later the original mirror was replaced with a 72 inch mirror. In 1998, the telescope was sold by Ohio Wesleyan to Lowell Observatory and is now operated in partnership with Boston University.

The 72 inch telescope has a 2048 X 2048 CCD camera which provides a 13.65 X 13.65 arcminute field of view with a scale of .39 arcseconds per pixel. The optical system has a focal reducer providing an F ration of 4.34.

I toured Anderson Mesa in 2003 and got to see the telescopes which also include a 42 inch, 31 inch, and 21 inch telescopes. These telescopes are still work horses of Lowell's asteroid program, but all are showing their age. One astronomer told me that the 72-inch 'breaks nightly', but it is usually software related and fixed.