Pete's Amateur Astronomy Web Site

We visited Phil Mahon at his Star Hill astronomy retreat near Las Vegas, New Mexico, a number of times until he closed the doors in June, 2008.  The 24-inch telescope was disassembled and shipped back to the new owner in the U.K., where it was originally manufactured. 

We spent many happy weeks there while it was active, and regret that it is no longer in operation.  There are other astronomy-oriented facilities in the country, but none come close to matching the charm and atmosphere of Star Hill.  The photos below were taken in October, 2003, and more photos of the large telescope may be viewed by clicking HERE.  The dropdown menu (above) contains video links of the telescope and dome at Star Hill.

A heavily-laden amateur astronomer (Pete) approaches the Dome housing the 24-inch.  The dome slit was opened using a hand crank, and was rotated using a hand box controller. The entire dome, including the entry door,  rotated instead of just the top part.  The interior of the dome wa equipped with an 8-foot wheeled ladder, several chairs, an equipment rack and a desk holding a computer/ monitor and control box for remote telescope pointing. 

As can be seen below, the telescope housed in this dome was a serious piece of equipment.  According to the Star Hill Website, it was previously owned by the University of Denver, and when the University needed to upgrade to two larger telescopes, it was purchased by a resident at Star Hill.  The telescope and dome were disassembled, moved down to Sapello and reassembled as you see it here  The mount and drive motor assemblies are very beefy, and can support hundreds of pounds of equipment attached to the tailplate.   The telescope alignment and pointing controls were done using NGC-MAX..  After alignment, RA and DEC were determined by reading the numbers from the control display, and using the built-in object database, it was reasonably straightforward to find objects.  Phil also had 'The Sky' software and interface to control pointing, although it was more convenient to point the telescope manually and use the computer as a sky chart or planetarium.