NCSU Students and RAC members Refurbish SCT’s
On Saturday, 07-Jul-2012, RAC had an opportunity to help NCSU students refurbish NCSU Observatory scopes and eyepieces. This event had been coordinated through the RAC Officers and NCSU Astrophysics department as an effort to revitalize NCSU’s Observatory. An additional benefit to the event was that of providing sustainability for future classes of rising astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists. This sustainability was achieved in two ways: Eyepiece Cleaning and Scope Maintenance.
The effort for refurbishing the NCSU Observatory actually began with a meeting at the  Observatory’s facility on 29-Mar-2012. During that meeting members of RAC met with Dr. Carla Frohlich and assessed how much work needed to be done. At that time Dr. Frohlich began amassing cleaning supplies and in-listing the help of interested students.
Then, due to the heat wave of 2012, equipment was moved from the Observatory to Riddick Hall on NCSU’s main Campus. The event finally came togeater on July 7th 2012 3:00PM – 5:00PM at 309 Riddick Hall on the NCSU Campus. RAC members attending this event were Mike Keefe, Mark and Phyllis Lang, Jim Pressley, and Doug Lively. Dr. John Blodin was present as the NCSU liaison. About 18 NCSU Students attended the event.
Jim Presley started the refurbishing session by training the students on how to clean eyepieces. Jim gave a brief history of eyepieces form he 1980’s to present (this was pertinent to the eyepiece collection that NCSU owns). He explained how eyepieces should be organized and then concluded his presentation with a demonstration on how to clean an eyepiece. Jim’s procedure can be found at the following website (courtesy of Phyllis Lang): http://knightware.blogspot.com/2012/05/spring-cleaning-part-2.html.
After Jim’s presentation concluded, we divided the students among three eyepiece cleaning stations and a fourth SCT repair station. Jim and Phyllis presided over the three eyepiece cleaning stations while Mark, Mike, and Doug assisted students with cleaning SCT’s. The SCT work mainly centered around cleaning Corrector Plates and Mirrors. Many of the eyepieces and scopes had sustained years of use and were in need of a thorough cleaning. However, after the cleaning session was over the differences in the before and after for both eyepieces and scopes was truley astounding. The SCT Mirror’s, Corrector Plates, and eyepieces all looked virtually brand new.
NCSU still has a few more scopes and eyepieces for the students to clean. Plus, the eyepieces need to be organized. Once they have completed these tasks RAC will meet with NCSU again to assist them with collimating the scopes.
All in all, this was a very successful event and the members of RAC look forward to working with the NCSU Observatory and Astrophysics department on future projects.
– Doug Lively
