Robert K. Buchheim

Small Telescope Astronomical Research

Photometry: 

• Asteroid Lightcurves & Phase Curves
• Pulsating Variable Stars
• Eclipsing Binary Stars
• Extra-Solar Planets

Astrometry

• Asteroid Tracking
• Double Stars

Occultations

Spectroscopy

Education

Equipment:

• 11-inch (0.28 m) Schmidt-Cassegrain (NexStar-11 GPS) main telescope
• 4-inch  refractor (StellarVue) guide 'scope mounted piggyback
• CCD imager:  SBIG ST8-XE
• Filter wheel:  SBIG CFW-8A, with photometric B, V, R filters
• Autoguider:  SBIG ST-i
• Spectrograph:  Shelyak ALPY-600

Dome: 

• "Sirius Observatories" home model (2.3 m diameter). 

Software:

• The Sky (Software Bisque) planetarium and observatory control program
• CCDSoft (Software Bisque) imager control
• PHD2 (Stark Labs) autoguiding
• Automadome (Software Bisque) dome control
• MPO Canopus (BDW Publishing) astrometry and photometry analysis

Construction and Operation of the Observatory:

Here are some pictures of the construction of the Observatory.

It became operational in August, 2003.

The neighbors are kidding me that my publicist has been working overtime!  Here's a nice article from the OC Post, about the only observatory in Coto de Caza.

The observatory system is pretty well automated.  In the evening, I tell the equipment what to do, and then it gathers data all night while I'm asleep.  Here is the interconnect diagram of the system.

I recently disassembled the mount of my NexStar-11 (partly in order to do a little maintenance, but mostly out of curiosity about what was in there).  This report might be useful to anyone else who wants to do the same.