Work continues at Cranbrook Astronomy Society, to restore the historic Alan Young telescope.
This 22.5 inch reflector carried out important work on supernovae in the 1970′s and 80′s, operated at Burwash in Sussex, by it’s designer and builder Alan Young.
It then lay dismantled and unused for many years, before coming into the hands of Cranbrook School. Volunteers at their astronomy society have worked over the last couple of years to restore the telescope to operation.
The restoration project is now reaching the final stages.
Here’s a close-up picture of the recently fitted Crayford focusser with a custom motordrive. The arrangement will permit careful adjustment of the focus, from the observatory floor level. This is essential…
As you can see here, from this picture of the Mintron camera being fitted to the focusser. It is many feet up and requires an access tower to reach safely.
In the bottom picture, the declination axis drive is being adjusted.
The telescope is expected to be fully operational soon.