What is the cost of an observatory quality telescope?

Question

I imagin in the millions or billions, just curious to the exact cost.

Answer 1

Small observatory class telescopes can be as cheap as tens of thousands of dollars. The Keck telescopes, which are among the largest in the world, cost $94 million and the Hubble Space telescope, which is actually smaller, cost $1.5 billion.

Answer 2

Like all telescopes, it depends on the type of telescope and it's bells and whistles.

Observatory telescopes fall into two classes. Those made readily available to anyone with the money, and those that require a team of engineers and a lot of funding.

In the first catagory we start at around $4000 new for something with 14" of aperture. These include some of the Celestron CGE series scopes, continue upwards. These aren't technically "research" telescopes but they are fine enough for many small educational institutions to use. Somehere in the middle we find Meade's Advanced Ritchey Chretien's and between $14,000 and $17000 is the Parks Oprtical line of observatory telescopes. On the upper end of things are the Takahashis which do start below $10,000 but on the upper of the upper is the Takahashi C-400 Classical Cassegrain. The optical tube costs $60,000 and is made to order. The recommended mount costs $99,0000 and is not included. This is a research grade telescope.

The giant modern telescopes such as the ones at the W.M. Keck observatory on Mauna Kea DID cost millions of dollars to make...I believe about $95 million for the telescopes and domes and that doesn't include the operating costs.The observatory says the construction was made possible through a $140 million dollar grant. It is an interferometer (binocular telescope) and each mirror is 10 meters in diameter. The telescope is a custom design.

The WIYN 3.5 meter at Kitt Peak costed about $14 million in 1994

The 100" Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson was completed and operation in 1919, cost a little over $600,000 (an enourmous amount for the time!)

So anyway, you were right in your speculations.

Answer 3

Depends on what kind of quality telescope you want. I know where you could get a nice 24" complete with accessories for a couple hundred thou. If you want to use a bigger one, you could just buy time on it - or pay a few million for your own. Most have to be made from scratch and designed special, so that's another cost.