The Clay Telescope is located on the roof of the Science Center. It is a 16" (0.4 m) DFM engineered telescope. The telescope is fitted with a DFM filter wheel with Bessel filters (UBVRI and H-alpha) and is capable of taking quite nice photos considering the seeing and weather in Cambridge. The telescope is controlled using a Telescope Control System (TCS) and can also be controlled using The Sky software.

Currently, the telescope has two instruments. There is an Apogee Alta U47 imaging CCD (specifications). It has a FOV of 13' x 13'. We also have two SBig SGS spectrographs (detailed manual) with a SBig ST-7XME CCD (specifications) attached. Together the spectrographs offer three resolution grating options: low (3200 Angstrom range with 10 Angstrom resolution), medium (750 Angstrom range with 2.4 Angstrom resolution) and high (150Angstrom range with 1 Angstrom resolution).

The telescope was installed in the summer of 2007 by a generous donation by Landon T. Clay.