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ASTRONOMY (HERSCHEL)The Use of Robotic Telescopes for Education
Dr Lucie Green Mullard Space Science Laboratory Astronomy is part of the national curriculum at GCSE and A level but it can also be an exciting modern way of doing mathematics, physics, chemistry and even geography by use of robotic telescopes operated by the students themselves.Traditional telescopes are often large instruments enclosed in large buildings with a ‘slit’ in a rotating roof that can be opened. These telescopes can only move slowly across the sky, they are often located up a mountain to get above the clouds so as to increase the viewing time in a clear sky, they are booked up and getting a period to use any of them is difficult, they are operated by a technician, not by the astronomer and they involve days or weeks away from the office for the astronomer.For young people in the UK, light pollution from towns makes it difficult to see any except the brightest stars. To really see the night time sky you need the location of the conventional telescopes without the hassle and expense of travelling to the site, booking a time slot, employing a technician and being away from the office.Britain is leading the way by developing robotic astronomy.
[1] shows a robotic telescope built by Telescope Technologies Ltd, a spin-off company of John Moores University. It stands 8m tall and has a 2m diameter mirror; larger and smaller telescopes are made. They do not see a large area of the sky, about a 4 1/2 arc minutes, circle, but their pointing accuracy is high, about 2 arc-seconds. They move quickly and can go from one horizon to the opposite one in 3 minutes. No technician controls them; the astronomer types into his computer in his office the schedule of obser-vations he requires, send it over the internet to the telescope and it will do a whole night’s series of observations automatically and transmit the data back.The astronomer needs to think logically about the schedule to make best use of the time.To enable the telescope to move quickly over the sky, the building housing it is entirely different to the conventional observatory, it is a ‘clam shell’ design [2].
The whole roof opens at dusk and closes at dawn or if the weather becomes too windy, wet or cloudy for observation. Part of the roof can be raised to provide a shield from a strong wind [3]
but the telescope is supported on steel tubes that will keep it rigid in a 40 mph gale. It has a set of filters to allow colour photographs to be taken and special wavelengths to be selected [4].
So how can these telescopes be applied for education in schools? There are two projects; the one Dr Green worked at when she was at Cardiff University was the Faulkes Telescope Organisation. Mr Faulkes made a lot of money in America and offered the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) £10 million and this ended up in providing two robotic telescopes for use by school students and astronomical societies. The PPARC and the Dept. of Education added £1½ million. The second project is The National Schools (NSO) Observatory, using a third similar telescope, on which 95% of the time is used by professional astronomers and 5% by schools.These projects allow students not only to carry out exciting observations that involve them in mathematical calculations, physics, cosmology and computer science but also to produce new scientific information of value. They are backed up by considerable educational support so that teachers do not have to prepare lessons.The two Faulkes telescopes are located, one in the Hawaiian Islands on Mauna Kea on a mountain and the other in Australia in New South Wales in the rain forest. Eventually it is hoped to have a network of three in each hemisphere and this is where geography can be involved in selecting suitable sites. This ‘Robonet’ would allow continuous observation of an event. The NSO telescope is on La Palma in the Atlantic. These are all superb observing sites with clear skies 80% of the time. Hawaii and Australia are in darkness when the UK is in daylight so students can, during school hours, operate either of these telescopes in real-time. The Las Palma instru-ment is in the same time zone as the UK and is controlled by sending it emails with instructions to be carried out hours later. One of the big investigations at present is into the planets round stars other than the Sun. Over 100 have been found but they are all giants and very close to the star (‘hot Jupiters’) and we are really interested in small Earth-like planets that might have life on them. Hot Jupiters are detected by the wobble they cause in the motion of the star by measuring the Doppler shift of the light, or by watching them cross in front of the star. The latest technique is Gravitational Micro- Lensing: the light from the star is bent by the planet and appears as a brighter peak when the planet goes across the star. The second big investigation is into Gamma Ray Bursts, which were discovered in the 60s. A satellite SWIFT now detects these bursts, which are the biggest explosions since the beginning of the Universe (the Big Bang) and which happen about once a day in any direction. They can be used to study the early Universe. After the initial flash there is an afterglow in other parts of the spectrum - X-rays, radio waves - which can last for days or weeks, but if the burst happens so quickly in any direction how do you get a telescope pointing in the right direction to study this afterglow? You use a robotic telescope. SWIFT detects the initial flash and sends a message where the flash is located to a robotic telescope to which it swings in a few minutes. Many investigations can be made of galaxies of which there are a wide variety of types involving the Hubble 'Tuning fork' programme. An object of interest to students is the Crab Nebula. Its formation was noted by the Chinese in 1054 and we know how far away it is so by measuring its size now they can determine how fast the material in it is moving. These telescopes are not intended for studying the solar system but it is possible to get pictures of the planets, for example, to study the Red Spot on Jupiter, although pictures of the Moon are difficult as it is too bright. There are school projects on asteroids and comets, galaxies, stars and nebulae tabulated on the web site. One student in Ireland studied how one asteroid spun in space and the amount of reflected sunlight to determine the movement of asteroids. Another studied galaxies and discovered both a new cluster of galaxies and a new asteroid whilst doing so.Because it costs £½ million a year to run the Faulkes telescopes it has been found necessary to ask schools and undergraduates to pay towards these costs. The Faulkes Organisation charges £160 for 3 x 30 minute sessions. It may be possible for undergraduates to get funds from research project budgets and students might get money from the Nuffield Fund; they pay a weekly allowance and fees for conferences. The Minor Planet Centre also has some funds to support research, they now agree that students produce good enough results to be accepted as competent and be allocated an MPC Code, so any asteroid they discover is named after them. New Near Earth Asteroids found by an organisation in USA are passed on to students for them to determine the orbit.The National Schools Observatory charges £50 registration fee for any amount of observing - but only 5% of the time on that telescope is allocated for schools.The NASA mission to comet Temple 1 includes a probe which, on 4 July 2005 will impcat with the nucleus to find out what it is made of. If the effect is large it may be visible through binoculars. A TV programme of this event is planned.Pictures were then shown of the way of using and controlling the telescope and the computer screens that are seen including picture returned to your computer of the telescope moving. Astronomical Societies are encouraged to work with schools by providing expertise. More detail can be obtained from: www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk for the Las Palma telescope and from www.faulkes-telescope.com . Donald Lovell |
