Twin GRAS Telescopes under Spainish Skies

The European GRAS Astrocamp facility will soon boast TWO 17” CDK remote telescopes.

Along with the newly established GRAS-007, which has proven itself with some spectacular imaging during the past month, our European base will soon have its second Planewave 17” telescope installed alongside G7.

The second 17” CDK will be named ‘GRAS-017’ and be fitted with a ProLine E2V CCD47-10-1-109 Deep Depletion Fused Silica CCD Camera.  It is a back-illuminated (contrary to front-illuminated, where photon absorption is higher) CCD and has an IR-enhanced spectral response. A set of complimenting filters will also be fitted to further boost its NIR performance.


G17 will have a focal ratio of f6.8, and will later be fitted with a Planewave focal reducer we have on order from the USA to bring its focal ratio down to f4.5 and its field of view will broaden as a result (23x23 arcmin). It will have a focal length of 1.94 meters in this configuration. Ideal for infrared astronomy.

This OTA seems to be the flavour of the month as its proving to be an wonderful optical assembly made and supported by the good folks at Planewave.

Having G7 & G17 installed side by side and using the Twins simultaneously will enable some very interesting science and deep sky imaging to be carried out via the combined variety of filter options and CCD capabilities.

The twins are housed in a new Hi-Tech ‘roll-off’ observatory. This building can house six large aperture telescopes in luxury at the Nerpio facility.