Altitude 260 m (850 ft) unnamed telescope 1 m reflector | Established 1970s | |
The Canopus Hill Observatory is an optical astronomy observatory belonging to the University of Tasmania (UTAS), It is located approximately 12 km from Hobart in Tasmania, Australia. Also on the site is a 16" telescope used by the Astronomical Society of Tasmania for photographic work and for public viewing during observatory open nights.
The expanding city of Hobart provides a high level of light-pollution making the astronomical observations very hard. This is the reason the observatory will be soon closed. Some instruments from current 1 m telescope, like fiber-fed Coude spectrograph and SITe 512x512 pixel CCD camera, will be moved to the newly constructed UTAS observatory at Bisdee Tier.
Telescope
Instrumentation for the 1.0 m (39 in) telescope includes a 2 channel high speed photometer with UBVR and C filters and a CCD photometer with SITe 512x512 pixel illuminated backside thinned CCD and quick change 6 channel filter wheel. These are mounted at the f/11 Cassegrain focus. A high resolution Coude spectrograph exists but is currently not operational. A tip-tilt mechanism on the tertiary mirror is now used for auto-guiding during long exposures but will be used for full first order image correction when a fast guide camera becomes available.