The CDK125 seen here was in use in the Roll Roof facility during 2011 to explore ways to provide on-line high quality imaging for students to use interactively.

In typical nightly use, this Planewave Instruments CDK125 12.5-inch corrected Dall-Kirkham and an Allied Video Technology (AVT) Prosilica high speed video color camera recorded images of favorably placed objects in the sky, including most of the Messier catalog, the planets and the Moon. An archive of best images that improved as new ones were acquired and is available, and uncompressed tiff and fits image files may be downloaded from our servers. The telescope and camera combination provided realistic color images of stars at least as faint as 16th magnitude, and detail as small as 1 arcsecond, in exposure times from a fraction of a second for planets to 30 seconds for nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The images were provided immediately through a browser in a convenient high quality jpeg format. In June 2012 it was replaced for that purpose with the wide field of view telescope and camera seen in tandem here.

All of the images, processed data, software, and instructional materials developed at Shared Skies observatories are offered free for non-commercial use with Creative Commons or GPL licenses after a short proprietary period. Shared Skies telescopes are available for use by students at the University of Louisville and the University of Southern Queensland, and by teachers and students in middle and high schools mentored by faculty at the universities. To arrange to use the telescopes live, or for robotic observations and access to archival data, please contact us by email to kielkopf at louisville dot edu.