All they are waiting for is a dark starry night and Tauranga astronomers will be putting their new telescope through its paces.
Astronomical society members carefully installed the new reflecting telescope this week, on a custom built viewing platform, under the sliding roof, of the former Ferguson Park Soccer Club rooms.

Astronomical society members and the new telescope.

The 14" Meade LX200 ACF is a modern state of the art telescope. It has a built-in GPS to locate itself on the surface of the planet - the key to enabling it to point straight to any star in the catalogues.
Society member Toby Tobias says the beauty of the system is it can be operated remotely with the telescope's view shown on a large screen.
"Then we can watch it down below on TV," says Tobias.
It means several people can view the result at the same time - and that on a really cold night they can stay inside and enjoy their viewing in comfort.
The ACF tag on the $14,000 telescope stands for advanced coma free optics. It's a development that produces sharp fully rounded stars without the crescent shaped distortions known as coma, an optical aberration found on most other astronomical optical systems.
Because ACF concentrates starlight without coma or diffraction spikes, astronomers are able to see fainter stars.
The society began negotiating with the council for the space about five years ago, says society member George Stewart.
The telescope itself has been in storage for a year.
"We took it out last winter and made sure all the bits and pieces worked," says George.
The astronomical society's meetings are on the fourth Tuesday of every month.
George says they have been helped into their new sliding roofed viewing spot by the Otumoetai Sports and Recreation Trust, TECT and 'you name it'. Mount Engineering built the pier on which the telescope is mounted, and Bothwell Builders have done the fit-out.