List of Submitted Abstracts
as of February 12, 2012
| Albrecht, R. (talk) | | Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility |  | | The data generated by the Hubble Space Telescope pose a series of special requirements for the analysis process. The HST is being operated in a semi-autonomous, pre-programmed manner, executing a queue of observing requests. Calibration is being done "institutionally", i.e. not in response to individual observing programs, but in the same manner for all users. Data products are being generated for the observers, and they are ingested in the HST science data archives, to make them available for further exploitation through the Virtual Observatory. Added value products can be generated by combining data from different programs. Intercative analysis tools are being supplied to support users in the optimum exploitation of the data. This paper describes the background, the boundary conditions and the rationale for the post-observational processing of HST data. |
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| Allende Prieto, C. (talk) | | Automated Analysis of Spectra | | | `Classical' model-atmosphere analyses of stellar spectra usually begin by measuring equivalent widths, and then proceed into a loop in which 1) model spectra are calculated for a set of abundances and atmospheric parameters, and 2) observed and computed spectra are compared and corrections to the abundances and parameters are inferred. Automated techniques have been developed to automate the measurement of equivalent widths, and some or all parts in the analysis loop. However, in order to tackle the massive datasets provided by the new spectroscopic surveys with dedicated telescopes, it is necessary to make some radical changes. It is argued that future analyses of stellar spectra should abandon the use of equivalent widths, and rely on tables of synthetic spectra that can be either interpolated extremely fast or used to train genetic algorithms. The same concepts apply to analyses of galaxy spectra. Examples of ongoing projects involving high-dispersion spectra for samples of hundreds of stars and low-dispersion spectra for samples of tens of thousands are described. |
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| Andersen, M. I. & Pedersen, H. (talk) | | Gamma-ray burst optical follow ups with robotic telescopes | | | The highly transient nature of Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) makes robotic follow-up observations the most efficient way of acquiring critical data of the early burst evolution, best illustrated by the early ROTSE observations of GRB 990123. We will briefly describe the characteristics of GRBs that makes rapid response observations of GRBs so important, followed by a summary of previous observations. A wish list of future robotic observations of GRBs is then discussed. |
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| Ashley, M.C.B. (talk) | | Robotic astronomy from Antarctica | | | The high plateau that covers half of the continent of Antarctica contains the best observing sites on Earth. The infrared sky backgrounds are low, the precipitable water vapour is low, the sub-millimetre sky opacity is low, the atmosphere is exceedingly clear and stable, it never rains, there is no dust, it is geological stable, the winds are low, and the seeing can be spectacularly good. Our group at the University of New South Wales has 10 years experience in building robotic, autonomous, instruments for deployment at the US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and Concordia station at Dome C. Antarctica presents some unique challenges, such as temperatures down to -80C, and the need to build reliable instruments that can work with no human intervention at uninhabited sites. Some things are easier: the lack of rain means that there is no need to protect the telescope from the weather. The lessons learned in Antarctica, particularly with respect to the design of reliable hardware and software, can be profitably applied to robotic telescopes at mid-latitude observatories. |
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| Baruch, J.E.F., Hedges, D.G., Machell, J., Tallon, C.J. (talk) | | Robotic Telescopes and the Public | | | The development of robotic telescopes for access by the public is discussed. The importance of astronomy in providing easily accessible science and stimulating young minds with the beauty and mysteries of the cosmos is outlined in the light of the continuing need to inspire young people with science and make possible careers in science and engineering. The growing problems of seeing the stars in our cities due to light pollution and the increasing attraction of TV, computer games and the Internet are all reducing the levels of familiarity of young people with the night sky and their potential interest in astronomy. The ways in which robotic telescopes can reintroduce young people to the heritage of the night sky are outlined and various initiatives discussed around the returns that can be gained in bringing astronomy to the public. |
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| Birlan, M., Barucci, A., Thuillot, W. (talk) | | Solar system observations by remote observing technique | | | Remote observations between Paris Observatory and Mauna Kea, Hawaii, have been started two years ago (Birlan, Ad Astra,1(2), 2002). Nowadays ten runs have been already conducted from the remote observing center located in Meudon. The main topics of our investigations were devoted to physical studies of minor planets (Binzel et al, PSS, 52(4), 2004, Birlan et al, New Astron, 9(5), 2004) and to spectral investigations of planetary atmospheres. Our experience attained its maturity and the acquired feed-backs allow us to discern between the advantages and difficulties of this observing technique. The main purpose of this talk will be to share the remote observing experience and to valorise it in the frame of robotic telescope concept. |
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| Biryukov, A. (SAI, SAO), Beskin, G. (SAO), Bondar, S. (RIPI), Hurley, K. (SSL), Ivanov, E. (RIPI), Karpov, S. (SAO), Katkova, E. (RIPI), Pozanenko, A. (IKI), Zolotukhin I. (SAI, SAO) (poster) | | Software for detection of Optical Transients in observations with Rapid Wide-Field Camera | | | A software complex for detection and investigation of optical transients (OTs) in observations with rapid wide-field camera has been developed. Software is installed at the three PCs and supported by WINDOWS and LINUX OSes. Data stream is a sample of digitized TV-CCD frames with size of 1360x1024 pixels, exposure time of 0.13 sec and frame frequency of 7.5 Hz. Software performs the following tasks: real time data transfer to the LAN; accumulation of initial data (total volume up to 0.5 Tb per night); real time data reduction - detection and classification of OTs (stationary and moving), determination of their equatorial coordinates, magnitudes and parameters of trajectory, their possible identification with known objects and transmission of information about OTs (alerts) to the local and global networks. OT detection algorithm is based on the pixel-to-pixel comparison of current frame with frame averaged over 10-100 previous ones. It takes 0.4 seconds (3 successive frames) to conclude about detection of OT and to calculate of detected object parameters The faintest detectable object has 11.5 magnitude (close to V-band). This limit increases to the 12.5 - 14 magnitude as a result of simultaneous analysis of samples from summarized frames (from 7 to 750 of initial ones). During 150 nigths of observations from autumn 2003 till summer 2004 in average 100 satellities and 200 meteors were registered per night. |
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| Carini, M. T., Mattox, J.R., Walters, R., Gelderman, R., Davis, D., Everett, M., Guinan, E., Howell, S. , and McGruder, III, C. H. (poster) | | Blazar Variability Studies with the 1.3-meter Robotically Controlled Telescope | | | One of the key programs on the 1.3m Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) located at Kitt Peak National Observatory is a study of the variability of the class of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) known as Blazars. Blazars are highly variable on timescales of minutes to decades and this variability is seen across the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition, they display a featureless spectrum, thus continuum variability provides the only diagnostic of these objects. Variability provides information on the size of the emission region responsible for the observed variations and when observations are obtained at multiple wavelengths, it can be used to discriminate between emission models. However, traditional ground based observations are limited in a variety of ways. We will discuss how an automated facility, with time dedicated to this astrophysically interesting problem, can overcome many of these limitations, and we show some of the first results of Blazar observations from the RCT. |
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| Carini, M. T., Barnaby, D., Walters, R., Poteet, C., van Fleet, R., Wills, W., Gelderman, R. (poster) | | Automated Variability Monitoring of Blazars with the Western Kentucky University 0.6m Telescope | | | Blazars are a subclass of Active Galactic Nuclei which are highly variable on timescales of minutes to decades and this variability is seen across the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition, they display a featureless spectrum, thus continuum variability provides the only diagnostic of these objects. Variability provides information on the size of the emission region responsible for the observed variations and when observations are obtained at multiple wavelengths, it can be used to discriminate between emission models. The limitations of ground based astronomy make it difficult to resolve some of these timescales. These limitations hamper our ability to compare ground based observations with those obtained at higher energies from spaced-based missions which are free from many of these same difficulties. Most of these limitations can be overcome via automating the observatory. We discuss our progress towards the automation of the 0.6m telescope, our scientific results and future plans. |
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| Colomé, J. (IEEC), Fernandez, D. (Consorci del Montsec-Univ. de Barcelona), Isern, J. (IEEC-CSIC), Palau, X. (Fundacio Joan Oro), Torra, J. (Univ. de Barcelona-IEEC), Castander, F.J. (IEEC-CSIC), Figueras, F. (Univ. de Barcelona-IEEC), Garcia-Berro, E. (IEEC-Univ. Politecnica de Catalunya), Jordi, C. (Univ. de Barcelona-IEEC), Luri, X. (Univ. de Barcelona-IEEC), Ribas, I. (IEEC-CSIC) (poster) | | Robotic Design of the Montsec Astronomical Observatory | | | During the coming months, the Astronomical Observatory of the Montsec is expected to begin routine operations. This observatory, located in a moutain range at an altitude of 1570 m, hosts the largest telescope in Catalonia (Northeastern Spain), with a diameter of 80 cm. The telescope and instrumentation have recently begun their comissioning phases, after the design and construction stages have been completed. The primary guideline of the project is common to all three development stages: to guarantee the telematic operation of the observatory to carry out astronomical observations. Most of the routine work will be done in either remote control or robotic operation. Here we present the design devised to ensure a reliable and efficient system in these two operation modes. We give a description of the instruments and software, and discuss some of the main characteristics of the operation of the observatory together with our designed solutions to respond to any critical event. |
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| Deeg, H.J., Alonso, R., Belmonte, J.A., Alsubai, K., Doyle, L.R. (poster) | | A Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) for long-term acquistion of stellar lightcurves in search of transits and for variable star tracking. | | | An overview is given over the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project. The primary goal of PASS is the detection of all transiting giant planets in the entire sky, with periods up to several weeks, and with a completeness magnitude of the central star of 10-11. Since sample stars are fairly bright and mostly nearby, planets detected by PASS would be ideally suited for any follow-up study with ground or space based instrumentation. The survey would also allow the pursuit of a variety of work on temporal astronomical phenomena of any kind,and may lead to a permanent all-sky tracking of variable stars. Calculations of the instrument's noise sources and subsequent simulations indicate that the proposed design, based on an array of fixed CCD cameras with wide-field optics, covering the entire sky that is visible from a given site, is able to achieve the main objective of an all-sky transit survey. First tests with a 1-camera prototype have taken place at Teide Observatory, Tenerife. The prototype will allow a feasability study, the refinement of the observing strategies, and the start of a survey for transiting planets in a limited field. |
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| Deeg, H.J., Alonso, R., Brown, T.M., Belmonte, J.A. (talk) | | STARE Operations Experience and its Data Quality Control | | | The STARE instrument was the first to detect the transit of an extrasolar planet in 1999. To date it has performed one of the longest running searches for transits, being in nearly continous operations since July 2001 at Teide Observatory, Tenerife. We describe the instumental setup and the scheme that is used for data acquisition, handling and analysis. Emphasis is given to the aspect of selecting the most promising candidates for planetary transits among the various stars that display transit-like features in their lightcurves. To this end, we first review the conditions under which we obtained data suggestive of transits, and we then follow a chain of verification and follow-up measures, progressing from fairly simple ones of low cost and effort towards more involved ones, which may be needed to positively verify the existence of a true planetary transit. |
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| Di Rico, G., Di Varano, I. (poster) | | The Antartctic Mid-IR Camera (AMICA) for the IRAIT telescope | | | AMICA (Antarctic Mid-Infrared Camera) is the main focal plane instrument for the IRAIT telescope. It is based on a Si:As BIB 256x256 array, working in the spectral range 8 - 27 microns. The camera is designed to operate at Dome-C, the Italian-French base located on the Antarctic Plateau. Because of the extreme environmental conditions and in order to reduce the risk of dangerous events, we have adopted a modular remote control system, both on hardware and software components. AMICA will exploit this new exceptional site with unique atmospheric conditions in the mid-IR windows, starting from the summer Antarctic campaign 2005-2006. |
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| Dravins, D. (talk) | | The Time Domain: A New Window to the Universe! | | | Astronomy develops by expanding its parameter domains: by extending the wavelength regions accessible for (both observational and theoretical) study; by enhancing the spatial resolution, and by increasing the spectral one. A further expansion in parameter space is now in the time domain. "Cuts" through parameter space show, e.g., the changing appearance of objects seen in different wavelengths. An analogous cut though twenty decades of time resolution (from millennia to nanoseconds - from historical supernovae to quantum optics) shows the appearance of cosmic phenomena viewed through temporal "filters". Different phenomena have their own characteristic times (light echoes in galactic nuclei; stellar activity cycles; gamma-ray bursts; millisecond pulsars; etc.), but they all exist only in the time domain: without time resolution the phenomena would not be revealed. While studying time variability as such is of course not new, robotic astronomy may greatly enhance the quality and quantity of feasible studies by offering calibrated time series (thanks to uniform instrumentation), and by the capacity of handling large data flows (enabling both the survey of many objects, and reaching very high time resolution). |
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| Eaton, J.A., Williamson, M.H. (talk) | | Managing the Operations of the TSU 2-m Automatic Spectroscopic Telescope | | | Tennessee State University has built and is now operating a completely automatic 2-m telescope for high-dispersion spectroscopy. This system consists of an alt-azimuth f/8 Cassegrain telescope, housed in an enclosure with a roll-off roof, coupled to a white-pupil echelle spectrograph with a fiber-optic cable. We discuss managing this facility over the Internet with emphasis on 1) the configuration of the control system, 2) logging, 3) troubleshooting and quality control, 4) updating the target lists, and 5) archiving and handling the data. |
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| Everett, M. E., Davis, D. R., Howell, S. B., Walter, D. K., McGruder, C. H., Gelderman, R., Guinan, E. F., Mattox, J. R. (poster) | | Automated Image Reduction at the RCT | | | Automated image reduction software was written to process data from the CCD camera at the Robotically-Controlled Telescope on Kitt Peak. The software runs unattended, either at the telescope or off site, at the end of each night, producing reduced images. Top level program control is provided by Perl scripts which in turn utilize IRAF shell scripts and FORTRAN77/FITSIO programs to operate directly on the images. The structure and use of the software is described here along with an example of how other more specialized pipelines, in this case a package to produce stellar light curves, make use of these image reduction programs. |
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| Fekel, F. C. and Tomkin, J. (poster) | | Spectroscopic Orbits of Potential Interferometric Binaries | | | We are obtaining high-resolution, red-wavelength spectra at McDonald Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory to improve the orbits of over 30 known spectroscopic binaries that are potential targets for ground-based optical interferometers. The combination of such observations will produce 3-dimensional orbits from which very accurate masses and orbital parallaxes can be obtained for double-lined binaries. In the near future this spectroscopic program will be expanded and placed on the menu of the 2-m Automatic Spectroscopic Telescope of Tennessee State University, once that telescope becomes fully operational for science operations. |
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| Fernández, D., Isern, J., Palau, X., Torra, J. (poster) | | The Montsec Astronomical Observatory: a 0.8-m robotical telescope in Catalonia (Spain) | | | The Montsec Astronomical Observatory (Observatori Astronòmic del Montsec, OAM) is the research infrastructure of the Montsec Astronomical Park (Parc Astronòmic Montsec, PAM). The PAM is a project pioneered by the Consorci del Montsec, an institution runned by the Catalan government. The OAM is located at 1570-m height at the Montsec mountain, 50 km South of the central Pyrenees, in the province of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). The Observatory location was chosen after a site-testing campaign. The OAM is endowed with the first robotical telescope in Catalonia (0.8-m), installed in March 2004. The post-focus instrumentation in a first stage is a 2048x2048 CCD camera. The Observatory management is conducted throught the TALON software, which runs the telescope and the dome, as well as the weather station and the GPS. The OAM is also equipped with a storm-detector, which evaluates the risk of lightning, and an energy generation system, which feeds the whole building. The OAM scientific programme will be extensive, embracing variable star observation, solar-type star activity monitoring, extrasolar planet search, novae and supernovae follow-up and transient phenomenae observation, among others. |
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| Furesz, G. (talk) | | Back to the future - bringing new life to old telescopes | | | In the era of 8 meter class monsters, adaptive optics and segmented mirror telescopes lots of small, old reflectors are subject to shut down. Some of those gets retouched and become a museum piece. In contrast to becoming history, equipped with a CCD and after some refurbishment on the mechanics and electronics, developmnet of a controller code, these beautiful old instruments can be effective tools of astronomers. The budget of such a work is less than biulding a same diameter new telescope. And even these renewed telescopes have some limitations due to the old design, it is worthy for smaller observatories to keep these instruments in use. In this talk we present an example, describing the old-new 24" Heyde reflector of the Konkoly Observatory. |
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| G.P. McCook, E.F. Guinan, L.E. DeWarf (Villanova University), R.F. Gelderman, C.H. McGruder (Western Kentucky University), D.K. Walter (South Carolina State University), S.B. Howell, D.R. Davis, M. Everett (Planetary Science Institute), J.R. Mattox (Fayetteville State University) (poster) | | Variable Stars in Clusters of Different Ages: High Precision Photometry with the 1.3m Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) | | | We discuss a new program for carrying out high precision VRI CCD photometry of several star clusters of different ages. The photometry is being carried out using the 1.3 m Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT), located at KPNO. This program focuses on the study of variable stars in mostly open clusters. Selected astrophysically important eclipsing binaries, pulsating variables, blue stragglers, and chromospherically active variable stars will be studied. Also, searches for new variable stars will be made from the expected large samples of cluster stars. |
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| Gelderman, R. (talk) | | The RCT at KPNO | | | The 1.3-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory was originally commissioned in 1964 as the "Remotely Controlled Telescope", a pioneering project in unattended, remote observing. Forty years of technological advances later, the 1.3-meter has been refurbished, automated and reborn as the "Robotically Controlled Telescope". The RCT is used to pursue a variety of research programs which incorporate techniques to achieve extremely high precision photometric monitoring of stars and AGN, as well as to search for transits of extrasolar planets. Since spring of 2003 the RCT has been controlled through pre-scheduled scripts, without interactive human control, to collect imaging data. The work on automation of the observatory system is continuing, with the ultimate goal being that the computer will control the telescope through semi-intelligent software to make observations as efficiently as a well-trained human astronomer. |
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| Geyl, R. (poster) | | Deputy Director SAGEM-REOSC | | | The Libyan Center for Remote Sensing and Space Science has awarded SAGEM-REOSC for the design, development and installation of a 2-m robotic telescope dedicated to education and research. Based on state of the art technology this system includes the telescope, the dome, the weather station and observatory control system as well as the coating chamber for periodic optics coating. Main features and options selected for the system will be presented as well as a status of the equipment manufacturing. Contact : roland.geyl@sagem.com |
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| Giblin, T.W., Neff, J.E., Hakkila, J., Davis, K., Hartmann, D. (poster) | | A Gamma-Ray Burst Rapid-Response Observatory in the US Virgin Islands | | | The College of Charleston is one of three institutions that belongs to a consortium to maintain and operate a remote, research-grade telescope on the island of St. Thomas (18 degrees north, 65 degrees west, elevation 420 meters, with arc-second seeing). The extreme eastern location of the observatory, and its ability to cover about 80% of the southern celestial hemisphere, makes this an ideal facility for observing Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The primary research function of this facility will be rapid, automated follow-up observations of GRBs observed with NASA's Swift spacecraft (via the GCN). The newly-renovated observatory houses a new robotic 0.5-meter Cassegrain telescope with a back-illuminated Marconi 4240 CCD imager (2048x2048 13-micron pixels) and a 12-position filter wheel. With our exceptional sky coverage, we anticipate a detection rate of about 10-15% of the Swift detection rate, thereby making a significant contribution to the global network of small telescopes dedicated to GRB response. |
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| Gonzalez-Perez, J.N., Hempelmann, A. (poster) | | Automatic pointing and guiding with the target star: experiences with the STELLA I telescope | | | A software developed for the automatic acquisition, guiding and focusing of the STELLA I telescope is described. In more than 80 nights, during the stay of STELLA I in Hamburg, the software was tested and improved on the night sky in a wide range of meteorological conditions using a ST7 CCD. The code, developed in Java and C, is capable of detecting the objects in the field, selecting the target to be observed, guiding using the target and focusing, all of this without human operation. In addition, several parameter are obtained from the images as a by product, such as the seeing and an instrumental magnitude of the target star, which help to estimate the observing conditions. It is also described which further improvements in the software are to be done in order to reach a better performance. |
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| Grado, A. (talk) | | Pipeline and data management for the INAF-Capodimonte VST guaranteed observing time | | | The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO, Cerro Paranal will be a 2.6m telescope equipped with a 16kx16k mosac camera built by the European consortium Omegacam. The corrected field of view is 1 square degree with a pixel scale of 0.21 arc-sec. The expected average data rate will be about 150 GB per night. This implies the necessity of suitable HW/SW facilities in order to cope with the large amount of produced data. Approximately 20% of the VST observing time will be reserved to the INAF-Capodimonte Observatory. Such guaranteed observing time will be devoted to an extragalactic and a galactic survey, as well as to studies of minor bodies of the solar system. The data processing should be as automatic as possible, starting from removing instrumental signatures, performing the astrometric and photometric calibration up to the ingestion of catalogs into a science archive. In this talk we describe the data model, the pipeline architecture and data management of the data processing system under development. |
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| Granzer, T. (talk) | | What makes an automated telescope robotic? | | | Robotic telescopes are more and more commonly used in today's astronomical research. To optimize the scientific return the automation must not stop at a level where a single observation can be performed by the robot. In fact it is necessary that target selection reflects the scientific needs of different science programs, involving long-term planing as well as short-term optimization. The approach pursued to battle this scheduling problem at the STELLA robotic observatory and first results on the algorithm's effectiveness are in the center of this talk. |
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| Granzer, T., Weber, M., Strassmeier, K.G. (poster) | | Generic Control of Robotic Telescopes | | | With the advent of a new generation of robotic telescopes the need to control more complex instrumentation arises. Still a vast set of functionality can be integrated into a generic schema if care is taken in the design of the robotic control software. In this poster we want to lay out our approach to a generic control software for robotic telescopes and how it is tailored to work on the STELLA-project, two 1.2m robotic telescopes. |
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| Gu, Sheng-hong (poster) | | Photometric study of the eclipsing binary V396 Monocerotis | | | The W UMa-type eclipsing binary V396 Mon was observed using 1m telescope of Yunnan Observatory on Jan. 14 and 15, 2000, and its complete BV light curves were obtained. From the observations, a primary minimum time and a secondary minimum time are determined. Combined with all published photoelectric minimum times, a new ephemeris is calculated. The new light curves are analyzed using the well-known Wilson-Devinney program, and the result shows that V396 Mon is a W-subtype contact binary. Compared with its previous light curves, it can be found that the light curves of the system are variable. This phenomenon probably results from starspot activity of the components. |
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| Handler, G. (talk) | | Asteroseismology with robotic telescopes | | | Asteroseismology explores the interior of pulsating stars by analysing their normal mode spectrum. The detection of a sufficient number of pulsation modes for seismic modelling of main sequence variables requires large quantities of high-precision time resolved photometry. Robotic telescopes have become an asset for asteroseismology because of their stable instrumentation, cost- and time-efficient operation and the potentially large amounts of observing time available. We will illustrate these points by presenting selected results on several types of pulsating variables, such as Delta Scuti stars (main sequence and pre-main sequence), Gamma Doradus stars, rapidly oscillating Ap stars and Beta Cephei stars, thereby briefly reviewing recent success stories of asteroseismic studies of main sequence stars. |
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| Hessman, F.V. (talk) | | The MONET Project | | | The "MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes" (MONET) consists of two 1.2m imaging telescopes funded by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation and Goettingen and operated by the McDonald Observatory in Texas and the South African Astronomical Observatory. Scheduled to go into operation during 2004, it will be used to perform a variety of monitoring and survey observations over the entire sky (particularly a search for exoplanets), to aid observations by satellites and 10m-class telescopes like the HET and SALT telescopes, and will be available to participating school classes all over the world. Through the use of Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML), we hope to be the kernel of a growing international network of heterogeneous telescopes. |
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| Hodapp, K.W., and the Pan-STARRS team (talk) | | The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) | | | This presentation will give an overview of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project, with particular emphasis on the design of the telescopes. Pan-STARRS intends to build a system of four 1.8m wide-field telescopes, each equipped with a gigapixel camera. The primary mission is the search for potentially hazardous asteroids, but the data will also be used for numerous other science projects. Pan-STARRS will survey the whole available sky once per week on average, and will produce deep images in g,r,i,z,and y of the static sky, as well as a database of moving and variable objects. |
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| Holl, A. (poster) | | IBVS and the data from robotic observatories | | | Automatic telescopes and surveys dump stellar variability data in ever increasing rates. We discuss what IBVS can do with this data and to what extent VO techniques could be applied. |
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| Ivezic, Z., Lupton, R.H., Boroski, B., Nicinski, T. et al. (talk) | | Sloan Digital Sky Survey data Management | | | Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is one of the most ambitious astronomical survey projects ever undertaken. The survey will map in detail one-quarter of the entire sky, determining the positions and brightnesses in five photometric bands of more than 100 million celestial objects. It will also obtain spectra for more than a million galaxies and 100,000 quasars. On a good night, SDSS Data Acquisition systems can collect up to 200 GB of data. I will describe how these data flow from the Apache Point Observatory to Fermilab for processing, how they are processed, and how the processed data products are disseminated to the collaboration scientists and, eventually, to the world. |
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| Karpov, S., Bad'in, V., Beskin, G., Biryukov, A., Bondar, S., Chuntonov, G., Debur, V., Ivanov, E., Katkova, E., Plokhotnichenko, V., Pozanenko, A., Zolotukhin, I. (Russia); Hurley, K. (USA); Palazzi, E., Masetti, N., Pain, E., Nicastro, L., Bartolini, C., Guarnieri, A., Piccioni, A. (Italy); Brosch, N., Eichler, D. (Israel); Shearer, A., Golden, A., Redfern, M. (Ireland); Atteia, J.-L., Boer, M. (France) (poster) | | FAVOR (FAst Variability Optical Registration) - Two-telescope Complex for Detection and Investigation of Short Optical Transients | | | A project of an astronomical complex for the detection in a wide field and detailed high time resolution investigation of optical transients (OTs) is described. The Complex consists of two instruments: a rapid wide-field camera with objective diameter of 15 cm, and a 60-cm robotic telescope equipped with a high time resolution spectropolarimeter. The wide field camera is already operative and able to detect OTs in a field of 17x20 degrees with limiting magnitudes (approximately the V band) from 11.5 for an exposure time of 0.13 s (one frame) to 14 for an exposure time of 100 s (750 frames). The camera acquisition system and software searches for OTs, classifies them and determines their parameters: coordinates (with a 30 arcsec accuracy), brightness and trajectory (if they move) within 0.4 s (3 frames) after the detection. On the basis of this information, an alert is generated and sent to the robotic telescope. The robotic telescope has the following characteristics: a mirror diameter of 60 cm, Cassegrain focus, a focal length of 12 m, a 10x10 arcmin field of view, and a slewing rate of 5 deg/s. This instrument is equipped with a Fast Universal Spectropolarimeter (FUSP) with high time resolution. FUSP consists of: an input unit which gives the possibility to use 3 observing modes (photopolarimetry, slitless and slit spectropolarimetry); a polarization unit (double Wollaston prism); a dispersion element; a position-sensitive detector (PSD) with time resolution of 1 microsecond; a "Quantochron 48-4" acquisition system. FUSP records photons of 4 spectra with different polarization plane orientations for each object in a field of 5 arcmin (slitless mode) or for an object in the slit (with size 2x4 arcsec). The spectral range is 4000-6500 AA and the resolution is 200-250 AA. Linear spectropolarimetry with signal-to-noise ratio of 10 can be performed for objects with magnitude V ~ 11 - 12 in 1 s. So, since the robotic telescope will point at the OT in 1-2 seconds after its detection, FAVOR will give high time resolution photometric, spectroscopic and polarimetric information about the transient in few seconds after the trigger. This means that most GRBs can be investigated in the optical range before the termination of the gamma-ray event. FAVOR is placed in the Northern Caucasus (close to the 6-meter russian optical telescope BTA) and will be completed with the commission of the robotic telescope. Tests of the Complex are expected to start in 2005 when the GRB-dedicated Swift satellite will be fully operative. |
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| Kitchatinov, L. L., Rüdiger, G. (talk) | | Stellar dynamos and differential rotation: what to observe? | | | Theoretical models for stellar differential rotation are often in agreement with observations though it is not always the case. There are repeatable observational claims of detecting the anti-solar differential rotation with the equator of a star rotating slower than high latitudes, while the standard hydrodynamical models do always produce solar-type rotation laws. We argue that the anti-solar rotation can, nevertheless, be reproduced if meridional flow is amplified by some additional driver not included in the standard formulation. Magnetic polar spot or tidal forcing from a close companion are the possible amplifiers of the meridional circulation. First simulations with prescribed (relic) magnetic fields do indeed show anti-solar rotation when the field is sufficiently strong. It would be very helpful for theory if observations could find-out what is special about those stars which show the anti-solar rotation. Observations can also help to choose between competing concepts of overshoot and distributed dynamos by following magnetic activity to late spectral types. If regular patterns of magnetic fields on stellar surfaces or regular cycles in time survive (disappear) to fully convective stars, the global dynamos are likely to be of distributed (interface) type. |
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| Kocak, M., Keskin, V., Selam, S.O. (poster) | | Dome Automation of Russian-Turkish Telescope Building at TUBITAK - Turkish National Observatory | | | The 11m diameter dome of the 1.5m Russian-Turkish telescope at TUBITAK Turkish National Observatory (TUG) was fully automated (both for tracking and pointing) based on micro-controllers and custom designed fiber-based rotational encoders. Fiber channels were used between encoders and host electronics to avoid environmental static charge effects. The system has an OS independent software structure and can be controlled remotely from a host PC. The constructed system can be easly implemented to any astronomical observatory dome. |
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| Kocak, M., Selam, S.O., Keskin, V. (poster) | | Meteorological Monitoring System of TUBITAK - Turkish National Observatory | | | A custom meteorological monitoring system was constructed to reliably monitor the meteorological parameters of the site of TUBITAK Turkish National Observatory. The site is located on a mountain top known as Bakirlitepe about 50 km west of the Antalya City at a height of 2485m. The system has software (C-based data aquisition/archiving structure and PHP based WEB monitoring support) and micro-controller based control electronics, fiber based custom designed encoder sensors (for wind speed and direction) and transmission lines using fiberoptic to RS232 transcievers. The constructed system can be used in any robotic telescope project for data monitoring and alert system creation. |
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| Lipunov, V., Krylov, A., Kornilov, V., Borisov, G., Kuvshinov, D., Belinski, A., Chilingarian, I., Kuznetsov, M., Potanin, S., Vitrischak, V., Antipov, G., Tyurina, N. (talk) | | Mobile Astronomical Systems of Telescope Robots (MASTER) near Moscow | | | We present the first russian robot-telescope for gamma-bursts prompt observations (http://observ.pereplet.ru). The telescopes are near Moscow. The system of telescopes with prompt pointing rate connects to internet. The main parameters are the following: - Richter-Slefogt system telescope (355 mm, f/d=2.4) - Richter-Slefogt system telescope (200mm, f/d=2.4) - Fluge system telescope (280mm, f/d=2.5) - TV-camera with 20x40 degree objective - Two CCD cameras (Pictor 416) - One CCD Apogey Camera AP16E - German type of mount with 8 grad/sec pointing rate. MASTER get images up to 19 magnitude per 1 min on 6 square degrees. |
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| Mankiewicz, L., A. Burd, M. Cwiok, H. Czyrkowski, R. Dabrowski W. Dominik, M. Grajda, G. Kasprowicz, M. Jegier, K. Nawrocki, B. Pilecki, L.W. Piotrowski, K. Pozniak, R. Romaniuk, R. Salanski, M. Sokolowski, S. Stankiewicz, D. Szczygiel, G. Wrochna (poster) | | All sky monitoring in search for optical flashes of extragallactic origin | | | We describe apparatus to search for optical, point-like flashes in the sky at the time scale of seconds. Such flashes are expected to accompany gamma ray bursts (GRB). The system is designed exploring techniques developed for modern experiments in particle physics. It monitors the sky continuously. The large data stream is analysed on-line and poten-tialy interested events are selected by a multilevel trigger system. The final design will consists of two sets of 16 cameras on fixed mounts, covering almost all visible sky. The first phase of the project uses two specially designed CCD cameras and a robotic mount for precise tracking and fast movement of cameras. The apparatus has been recently installed in the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile as an extension of the ASAS project. We describe technical aspects of the detector and present the first results. |
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| Martin Jelinek, Petr Kubanek, Martin Nekola, Jan Strobl and Rene Hudec (talk) | | BART: an intelligent GRB and sky monitoring telescope (2000-2004) | | | BART is a small aperture, intelligent robotic telescope located at the Astronomical Institute of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic in Ond\\v{r}ejov. Its primary target is to provide rapid observations of GRB optical counterparts. Secondarily it provides monitoring and photometry of various astrophysical objects. RTS2, the operating system of BART is an advanced and scalable robotic telescope platform. It is released under GPL, supports several types of instrumentation and is used also by some other robotic systems. |
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| McGruder III, Charles H.; Mark E. Everett, Steve B. Howell, Michael T. Carini, Donald R. Davis, Richard Gelderman, Edward F. Guinan, Sergey Marschenko, John R. Mattox, Donald K. Walter (poster) | | Searching for Extrasolar Planets with the 1.3m Robotically Controlled Telescope on Kitt Peak | | | The 1.3m Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT) on Kitt Peak will search dense stellar fields for transits of extrasolar planets (ESPs). We expect to photometrically monitor ~8,000 stars/night (~30,000 stars/year). Our approach is characterized by high photometric precision down to faint magnitudes. Specifically, we expect to achieve for a single exposure of a few minutes a photometric precision, ~ 1-2 millimag for the brighter stars (V, R~12m) and ~10 millimag for the fainter stars (V, R~19m). This level of precision will allow us to detect Jupiter-sized planets for all stars imaged, but also Neptune-sized planets transiting the brighter stars. Our approach enables the detection of ESPs around faint, distant stars (d <~ kpc). Thus, we will be able to provide statistics on the distribution of Jupiter-sized planets outside the solar neighborhood over a wide range of metallicity and age, which is currently inaccessible to spectroscopic radial velocity studies and also to wide-field imaging telescopes. We present preliminary test data from four fields in Lyra obtained during the scientific testing phase of the RCT. |
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| McGruder, III, C. H., Mattox, J. R., Carini, M., Davis, D. Everett, M., Gelderman, R., Guinan, E., Howell, S., Walter, D. K. (poster) | | The Optical Detection of Gamma Ray Bursts with the 1.3m Robotically Controlled Telescope on Kitt Peak | | | The optical (UBVRI) emission of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) will be detected with the robotically controlled telescope (RCT) on Kitt Peak. The RCT will respond automatically to electronic alerts from the GRB Coordinates Network. Response times of t >~ 1 minute are expected. |
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| Messina, S., Rodonò M., Cutispoto, G. (poster) | | The brightness variability of active stars on different timescales by robotic observations. | | | The brightness variations shown by late-type stars allow us to investigate the properties and evolution of photospheric activity centers. However, due to a number of reason such as flaring, rotation, active region evolution and latitude migration across the stellar disk, the brightness varies on different time scales, from a few hours to decades, and either randomly (due to flares events) or quasi periodically (due to rotational modulation). In order to disentangle and correctly interpret the causes that differently contribute to the observed brightness variability, late-type stars need to be observed systematically and from season to season for several years. Such a time-consuming task is best pursued by the use of small and medium-sized robotic telescopes. We report on selected examples where the systematic monitoring performed by the APT80/1 telescope at the Catania Observatory that has allowed us to detect and interpret magnetic activity-related variabilities on different time scales. |
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| Neff, J.E. (talk) | | The Virgin Islands Robotic Telescope | | | At 18 degrees north and 65 degrees west, the Etelman Observatory of the University of the Virgin Islands is the southernmost and easternmost optical observatory in the United States. The observatory is locate at an elevation of 420 meters on the island of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. The site has exceptionally good seeing (frequently better than 1 arc-second), dark skies, and the ability to reach deep into the southern hemisphere and to plug the northern-hemisphere longitude gap between the US and Europe. Astronomers at the College of Charleston, South Carolina State University, and the University of the Virgin Islands have formed a consortium to refurbish the site, conduct detailed site surveys, and to purchase a new 0.5-meter telescope and instrumentation. Installation of the telescope was recently completed; dome automation will be completed in July 2004. Our operations mode (manual, remote-controlled, or fully robotic) will simultaneously support our research, participation in multi-site campaigns, and the educational and outreach missions of our institutions. I will discuss the characteristics of the telescope and site, and I will outline the initial science plans of the members of the consortium. Further details will be given in poster presentations, and up-to-date information is available at http://astro.uvi.edu/. |
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| Neff, J.E., Allen, D.K., Aurin, D.A., Boyajian, T.S., Crowther, P., Davis, K., Drost, D.M., Giblin, T.W., Lucas, J., Thomas, N., Walsh, M. (poster) | | The Virgin Islands Robotic Telescope: History and Status | | | We will describe the evolution of the Etelman Observatory in St. Thomas, USVI into a modern, robotic astronomical facility. We will also highlight the initial science plans for this telescope, which will begin operations during the summer 2004. This effort has involved a large number of people in Charleston and St. Thomas. We have been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the South Carolina Space Grant Consortium, the South Carolina/NASA Epscor fund, the AAS Small Research Grants program, the Dept. of Defense, and the operating budgets of our institutions: The College of Charleston, South Carolina State University, and the University of the Virgin Islands. |
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| Oláh, K. (talk) | | New results with APTs: spotted stars | | | The growing APT datasets of spotted stars give new possibilities for studying activity features such as spot motions and differential rotation. Fourier analysis is commonly used on long-term datasets for deriving differential rotation. Different rotational periods of active stars at different times found from Fourier analysis indicate differential rotation but without knowing more about the spots' positions this information is of less use. A recently developed program for time-series analysis of spotted star light curves describe the changes of spot parameters (location and size) in time. In this talk we compare the results one can get using Fourier analysis and time-series spot modelling on the same datasets, made by the two Vienna APTs. In some cases multiple peaks in the Fourier spectra are resulting from differentially rotating activity features at different latitudes, that is verified from spot models. In other cases there is no connection between the results using the two different methods. The existing long-term APT observations of selected active stars are very important for these studies. Uninterrupted monitoring of well-chosen stars for several weeks is planned at Konkoly Observatory with the recently renowed 60cm automated telescope: the first results are briefly mentioned. |
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| Oláh, K., Jurcsik, J. (poster) | | Starspots and APTs | | | Accompanying poster for the talk on New results with APTs: spotted stars |
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| Pallavicini, R., Randich, S. (talk) | | Unsolved problems in observational astronomy. II. Focus on stellar spectroscopy | | | The advent of large 8-10m class telescopes, together with the continued use of 4m telescopes, promises a revolution in the field of intermediate and high-resolution spectroscopy of both galactic and extragalactic objects. We review some of the currently hottest topics focussing on stellar optical spectroscopy. Topics that will be briefly reviewed include: 1. light element abundances and their constraints for cosmology; 2. the formation and evolution of the Galaxy and of Local Group galaxies; 3. open clusters as tracers of internal mixing in stars and of the chemical evolution of the galactic disk; 4. very-low mass stars and brown dwarfs; 5. search for extrasolar planets and characterization of planet-host stars; and 6. surface inhomogeneities and magnetic activity in stars. We discuss the role that robotic telescopes with spectroscopic capabilities can play in some of these areas. |
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| Pepe, Francesco (talk) | | Radial Velocities from Automated Telescopes | | | Precise radial-velocity measurements have been, during the past years, the fundamental tool for the discovery and characterization of almost all presently known extrasolar planets. The increasing precision and efficiency of this technique opened also new possibilities on the follow-up of planetary transit candidates, and even in other astronomy fields such as for example asteroseismology and stellar physics. The example of extra-solar planets illustrates quite clearly the strong need for large observational surveys: 1) In order to get a complete view of the planet "zoo" many stars of various types must be measured and followed up. 2) The detection efficiency increases enormously with the quality and the quantity of data points. Time sampling is a critical parameter. 3) The great diversity of the known planetary systems requires to cover observation time scales from one night to several years and even decades. A direct consequence of the described aspects is that these survey programmes require a large amount of telescope time and a continuous follow-up of the observations. In a context of limited resources and large data amounts automated telescopes and telescope systems will be of great help or even required to carry out these programmes. Based on our experience with CORALIE and HARPS we will try to define a series of "requirements" towards an automated telescope system with regard to precise radial-velocity measurements and the related science. |
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| Pojmanski, G. (talk) | | The All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) | | | The All Sky Automated Survey is a low cost project which ultimate goal is detection and investigation of any kind of the photometric variability present all over the sky. Current system consists of 4 instruments covering 36x36, 9x9 (2 units) and 2x2 degrees, equipped with 2Kx2K CCDs, V,R,I standard filters and custom made automated mounts. All are working in Las Campanas Observatory in an fully automated mode. In the ASAS-3 phase of the project we have been taking data at a rate of 1 measurement per 1-3 days for all available objects brighter than V=14, located south of dec<+28 deg. So far over 1.5 TB of images has been collected and analyzed, leading to a photometric light curve catalog of over 10 mln sources. Preliminary search for variability revealed over 40,000 bright, variable sources (over 75 % were not known before). Direct acces to the data is available over the Internet: http://www.astrouw.edu.pl/~gp/asas At present ASAS Alert System is being tested. Events, like outbursts of CV's or Novae, eclipses etc are reported within a few minutes after exposure. Due to large number of artifacts in data these raw events require verification, which can take up to 24 hours. |
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| Pérez-Ramírez, D., Nemiroff, R.J., and the "Night Sky Live" Team (talk) | | nightskylive.net: The Night Sky Live project | | | The Night Sky Live project's main goal is to create a useful continuous record of the night sky (Nemiroff & Rafert 1999, PASP). In its current implementation, it is designed to work autonomously. It is essentially a passive observatory - it's only moving parts are the fan, the shutter, and the hard disk - it sees from horizon to horizon and does not track the sky. A continuous camera mates a Fisheye lens to a CCD camera under the control of a laptop computer. These components are housed in a weatherproof plastic case similar in size to a large briefcase. This camera is designed to be bolted to a rooftop and connected to power and Ethernet. It is therefore, thought to withstand any reasonable weather condition, and is programmed remotely over the Internet. With an immediate use for astronomers for the information that it provides about weather and seeing conditions, there are many scientific objectives established by the Night Sky Live project, including, the tracking of bright stars and highly variable phenomena such as novae, supernovae, optical counterparts to gamma-ray bursts, and others. When running it creates a series of files totaling about 500 Megabytes a single night. These images will be uploaded soon after being acquired to a publicly accessible web page which can be inspected by astronomers in neighboring domes, astronomers attempting to observe from a remote location, or others generally interested in observing site conditions on any particular date and time. The data is considered public domain immediately upon recording, and discoveries may be made with the data even without our knowledge. Currently, these cameras are allocated at major professional observatories all over the World. |
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| Pérez-Ramírez, D., Park, H.S. and the Superlotis team (poster) | | Super-LOTIS (Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System) | | | The 0.6-m Super-LOTIS (Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System) telescope is a fully robotic system dedicated to the search for prompt optical emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The telescope began routine operations from its Steward Observatory site atop Kitt Peak in April 2000. This system is capable of responding to the Gamma-ray burst Coordinate Network (GCN) triggers within seconds. Together with LOTIS, these systems have been monitoring the GCN real-time data for automatic HETE2 GRB triggers since HETE2's launch. We will summarize the current capabilities of the system and present recent scientific results. A progress report will be given on the upgrade of the system to allow for simultaneous near-infrared and optical imaging. |
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| Rauer, H. (talk) | | New results from BEST: The search for planetary transits | | | The ‘Berlin Exoplanet Search Telscope (BEST) is a small aperture (20 cm), wide-field telescope dedicated to the search for photometric transits of close-in Jupiter-sized exoplanets. The telescope is equipped with a commercial CCD with 2048 x 2048 pixels. The field-of-view of the telescope is 3 x 3 degrees, allowing a large number of stars (>30000) to be observed simultaneously in a typical field centred near the galactic plane. Regular observations of several fields have been performed from July 2001 to April 2003 at Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg , Germany. Planetary transit candidates have been found and followed further with radial velocity measurements. The current status of the BEST system will be presented. |
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| Reipurth, B., Chini, R., Lemke, R. (poster) | | The VYSOS Automatic Telescope Project | | | We are in the process of building two twin 16.25 inch robotic telescopes, one to be erected on Haleakala in Hawaii, the other on Cerro Tololo in Chile. The two telescopes will carry out the Variable Young Stars Optical Survey (VYSOS) during which star forming regions along the entire Galectic plane will be monitored for many years to come. The field of view will be 27 x 40 arcmin, the pixel scale 0.7 arcsec, and the limiting magnitude around 20 mag. The resulting database will provide the first systematic synoptic view of early stellar evolution. |
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| Rodonò, M. (talk) | | Stellar Activity and the long-term use of robotic telescopes | | | A number of robotic telescopes are nowadays devoted to the systematic monitoring of magnetically active stars and systems in several astronomical sites and its number is still growing. Standard equipments include wide- and narrow-band photometers and, more recently, spectroscopic capabilities are being implemented. Long-term time series being collected with robotic telescopes are of paramount importance in order to significantly progress in the understanding of solar-like stellar activity of magnetic origin, that seemingly affects most of cool dwarfs and subgiants. Actually this turns out to be the case in most instances whenever a sufficiently extended monitoring time had been devoted to the project. Our principal aim is to illustrate which key parameters of stellar activity can be derived from the systematic photometry by robotic telescopes, in particular, the physical characteristics of cool spots, their surface maps, covering factor and evolution, their surface motion, stellar angular rotation and differential rotation, and activity cycles. The astrophysical rationale of these studies resides in a better and more coherent understanding on a physically more soundful grounds why magnetic activity develops in different physical stellar ambients, how it evolves in time, and which are its effects on stars, from the formation to late evolutionary phases. Most of the present studies are dealing with “normal” dwarfs and subgiants, but it is easy to predict that in the future even more interesting science will be related with star formation phases, provided that we can succeed in disentangling the activity effects from the superimposed and often complex variability related to their young age. |
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| Ruder, H., Niedworok, S. (talk) | | ROTAT at OHP | | | We present a system used to remotely control our observatories in Tübingen and at the Observatoire de Haute Provence. We discuss the underlying hardware implementation as well as the software used to securely operate the various facilities at the observatory over the internet. The work on these observatories has been supported by the PUSH Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg (Public Understanding of Science and Humanities) in order to provide access to modern observation equipment to interested pupils at high shool level. Finally we introduce a simple workflow description language implemented for our robotic telescope at the University of Tübingen. |
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| Salinari, P. (talk) | | Adaptive telescopes in Antarctica? | | | Antarctica plateau sites seem to have unique properties concerning the atmospheric turbulence distribution, making them potentially the best candidates for very large optical-NIR telescopes equipped with high strehl, high contrast, wide field adaptive optics. Of course the technology of such large antarctic telescopes needs significant re-thinking with respect to that of temperate sites telescopes while the complexity of operating a frontier instrument equipped with multiple instruments on a variety of different observing programmes requires a specific definition of "robotization". |
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| Steele I.A. (talk) | | The Liverpool Telescope | | | The Liverpool Telescope is a 2-metre fully robotic telescope on the island of La Palma. First light was in July 2003 and Science Operations commenced in Januray 2004. In this paper I describe the operation of the telecsope, give some first science results, and briefly discuss the future networking of the telescope with the Faulkes Telecopes in Hawaii and Australia for which funding is now in place. |
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| Strassmeier, K.G., Andersen, M., Steinbach, M. (talk) | | New project: EDDINGTON goes Dome C | | | After the cancellation of ESA’s Eddington mission in late 2003 there is now an even stronger need for high-precision stellar photometry, especially within the European community. An optical survey telescope at the Antactic Dome C site could provide some of the data of Eddington’s Asteroseismology and Planet-Finding aspects and generate spin offs in practically all fields of stellar astrophysics as well as for a large number of extragalactic targets. This talk lays out a wide-field robotic survey telescope (RST), the basic design ideas, the critical construction features and its operations model. The telescope is based on 80/120cm folded Schmidt optics, built originally for a space project, and the use of 7680x7680 pixel 8-micron CCDs from the PEPSI/LBT wafer run. The telescope's total field of view would be 5 degree circular (minimum 3degx3deg square) and its plate scale would be 0.7 arcsec per pixel. Limiting magnitude is expected to be V=23mag in 10 min in a field of >10 square degrees. Our goal is to place the telescope to ”Dome C” at Antarctica. In this case we envision a broad international collaboration with colleagues from former Eddington participants and especially from Australia, Italy or France because these nations jointly run a station at Dome-Concordia (the AASTINO project; see talk by M. Ashley). The Antarctic site provides, in principle, one 6-month-long observing night per year under almost "space-like" conditions. This would allow for a unique data set for many years to come, similar to what could otherwise only be achieved from space. Accordingly, we adopted the strategy proposed for Eddington, and select two fields which should be observed for the entire polar night. The time resolution then sets the priorities for the many science cases. |
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| Strassmeier, K.G., Granzer, T., Weber, M., Woche, M., Andersen, M.I., Bartus, J., Bauer, S.-M., Dionies, F., Popow, E., Paschke, J., Fechner, T., Hildebrandt, G., Washuettl, A., Ritter, A., Schwope, A., Staude, A., Stolz, P.A., Schmitt, J.H.M.M., Hempelmann, A., Hagen, H., Gonzalez-Perez, J.N., Serre-Ricart, M., Arnay, R. (poster) | | The STELLA robotic observatory. I. Two new 1.2m telescopes for Tenerife | | | Accompanying poster for the talk on STELLA. |
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| Strassmeier, K.G., Woche, M., Andersen, M.I., Fechner, T., Weber, M., Granzer, T., Schwope, A., Staude, A., Bartus, J., Bauer, S.-M., Dionies, F., Popow, E., Paschke, J. (poster) | | The STELLA robotic observatory. II. Overview of its scientific instrumentation | | | Accompanying poster for the talk on STELLA. |
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| Strassmeier, K.G., and the STELLA team (talk) | | STELLA: a robotic observatory for Tenerife | | | STELLA (abbreviation for STELLar Activity) is a long-term project for observing and monitoring magnetic activity tracers on cool stars. The STELLA Observatory hosts two 1,2m robotic telescopes (STELLA-I and STELLA-II) that operate in fully unattented mode. The building itself is automatic, and the telescopes decide about the best observing strategy on the fly. STELLA-I fiberfeeds a bench-mounted high-resolution echelle spectrograph in the wavelength range 380-860nm at R=50,000 (the Stella Echelle Spectrograf, SES) while STELLA-II hosts an optical CCD imager and photometer with a FOV of 22'x22' and a pixel scale of 0.32"(the Stella Imaging Photometer, SIP). We will give an overview of the project and its instrumentation. Both telescopes are scheduled to see first science light in 2004. STELLA-I is a joint venture of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (AIP) and the Hamburger Sternwarte. STELLA-II is a project of the AIP. Both are in collaboration with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and are located at the Teide Observatory on the Canarian island of Tenerife, Spain. |
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| Street, Rachel (talk) | | SuperWASP I (La Palma) | | | SUPERWASP is an ultra-wide field (over 300 sq. degrees) photometric survey project designed to monitor stars between 7 - 15 mag to high precision and with high cadance over long (>2 months) timescales. The primary science goal of this project is the detection of exoplanetary transits, as well as NEOs and optical transients. The resulting photometric catalogue will be made public via a web-based interface. SUPERWASP consists of an array of cameras each with a 7.8deg x 7.8deg field of view, guided by a robotic fork mount and sited in a fibreglass enclosure among the ING telescopes on La Palma, Canary Islands. Here we describe the specifications of the instrument, its semi-automated operation and pipelined data reduction. We summarise the outstanding issues surrounding fully robotic operation. |
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| Tosti, G., and the IRAIT team (talk) | | The IRAIT project | | | The Antarctica Plateau has recently turned out to be the best place on the Earth to perform astronomical infrared observations in the 2-20 um atmospheric windows.Dome C, a site jointly exploited by Italian and French scientific teams in the framework of the Concordia project, lays on the Antarctica Plateau at an altitude of 3200 m and presents exceptionnally cold and dry climatic conditions. In this paper we shall describe the scientific motivations and the technical details of the infrared telescope IRAIT that we plan to put at Dome C starting from in 2005-2006. The IRAIT telescope is an alt-azimuth f/10 (originally f/20) reflector,with a 0.8m parabolic primary mirror and a wobbling auxiliary mirror suitable for the specific techniques of IR observations. It will be equipped with a Mid IR-camera built in Italy . The mid-IR instrument is based on a Si:As array of 256x256 pixels, operating in the spectral range 8 - 27 mm. |
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| Verozub, L.V. (poster) | | Probing Sgr A* with theory of large masses without events horison | | | In the present paper some consequences of the assumption that in the center of the Galaxy there is a supermassive compact object without the events horizon are considered. The possibility of existence of such object has been argued in the author's paper earlier. It is shown, that accretion of a surrounding gas onto the object can cause nuclear burning in a superficial layer which owing to comptonization in a hotter layer, laying above, can manifest itself in observable IR and X spectra. The contribution of an intrinsic magnetic moment of the object in the observable synchrotron radiation is considered, using transfer equations, taking into account influence of gravitation on the energy and movement of photons. |
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| Verozub, L.V. (poster) | | Space-Based Detector for Gravitational - Wave Astronomy | | | A space-based superconducting gravitational low frequency wave detector is considered. Sensitivity of the detector is sufficient to use the detector as a partner of other contemporary low frequency detectors like LIGO and LISA. This device can also be very useful for experimental study of other effects predicted by theories of gravitation. |
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| Vestrand, W. T. (talk) | | Unsolved problems in observational astronomy. III. Focus on Rapid Response | | | The existence of rapidly slewing robotic telescopes and fast alert distribution via the Internet is revolutionizing our capability to study the physics of fast astrophysical transients. During the next three years, nearly all of this capability will focus on the study of gamma ray bursts (GRBs). In the first part of the talk, I will discuss unsolved observational questions associated with optical emission during the critical first few minutes of a GRB. In the second part of the talk, I will talk about the challenge of finding and responding to optical transients in real time without alerts from high-energy satellites. To achieve that goal astronomers must merge robotic instrumentation, artificial intelligence, and advanced database technology to construct autonomous “thinking” telescopes. |
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| Vestrand, W.T. (talk) | | RAPTOR: A System for Mining the Sky in Real Time | | | We discuss the RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system at Los Alamos National Laboratory. RAPTOR is a wide-field sky monitoring system that is designed to identify and make follow-up observations of optical transients with durations as short as a minute in real time. It is composed of two arrays of telescopes, separated by 38 kilometers, that stereoscopically monitor a field of about 1300 square degrees for transients down to about V~12.5 magnitude in 30 seconds. Both arrays are coupled to real-time data analysis pipelines that are designed to identify transients on timescales of seconds. The absence of measurable parallax is used to distinguish celestial transients from non-celestial transients. Each telescope array also contains a sensitive, higher resolution “fovea” telescope, capable of both measuring the light curve at a faster cadence and providing color information. In a manner analogous to human vision, the each array is mounted on a rapidly slewing mount so that the “fovea” of the array can be rapidly directed for real-time follow-up observations of any interesting transient identified by the wide-field system. We also briefly discuss how such an all-sky monitoring system, when integrated with machine learning technology, can be used as a robotic sentinel that is capable of recognizing important variations in persistent sources and autonomously responding in real time. |
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| Voges, W. (talk) | | Robotic telescopes and the VO | | | Virtual Observatories are dealing with the federation of archival data, Robotic Telescopes are collecting new data in an automated fashion. Combining new acquisition of data and retrieval of distributed 'old' archived data in a fully automated way will facilitate enormously e.g.the detection/identification/classification of optical transients like variable stars, cataclysmic variables (dwarf novae), supernovae, transiting planets, near-Earth asteroids, GRBs and variable AGN. To have such an interface between telescopes and databases operationally available, communication links need to be established using commonly agreed standards (protocols, dataformats,etc.). Distributed archives of object catalogues, sky images, spectral and temporal data in all available wavelengths as well as astronomical literature need to be accessed quickly via web services over fast networks to learn more about the object of interest and to help making decisions if further immediate observations are to be performed. The application of GRID computing technologies will clearly benefit this process. In this task activities of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) could be very helpful. The IVOA coordinates VO-activities of it's 15 member organisations in Korea, Japan, China, Australia, India, Russia, Hungary, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Canada, the US and in the EURO-VO at ESO. The aims are - to establish essential technologies and interoperability standards to create a new research environment for the international astronomy community - to provide powerful search and data-mining capabilities at distributed heterogeneous astronomical archives - to develop new data analysis and visualisation tools for e.g. fast image processing, pattern recognition, temporal, spatial, and spectral studies, source detection, object identification and classification - to create data-modeling standards for all data-types (i.e. spectral, temporal, spatial) including simulations, enabling comparison of simulations with observations - to exploit GRID-computing for the next generation of large astrophysical simulations and for combining/cross-correlating/data-mining large data-sets at distributed archives. |
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| von der Lühe, O., Berkefeld, Th., Heidecke, F., Schmidt, W. (talk) | | Adaptive Optics for Robotic Telescopes? | | | Adaptive optics is a technology which removes optical aberrations of an astronomical telescope, caused by static and dynamic misfigures, misalignments, vibration and turbulence in the atmosphere. After vigorous development in the astronomical community for more than a decade, adaptive optics have become an essential feature of many nighttime and daytime telescopes. Still, the technology is considered complicated and requiring continuous humann intervention. We discuss the prospects of and requirements for autonomous low order adaptive optics systems for use with robotic telescopes. The model system we investigate is restricted to observing relatively bright program sources, such as stars with m_V < 10, in the visible sprectral regime. The objectve of such a system would be shortening the integration time for high resolution spectroscopy of bright stars. We also discuss the technical requirements for automatic operation of the adaptive optics, derived from our development of the alignment system for the balloon-borne Sunrise telescope.
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| Walter, D. K., Carini, M., Davis, D., Everett, M., Gelderman, R., Guinan, E., Howell, S., Mattox, J. R., and McGruder, III, C. H. (poster) | | Narrow-Band Imagery with the Robotically Controlled Telescope | | | A consortium of institutions operates the 1.3-m (50-inch) telescope at Kitt Peak, now known as the Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT). The RCT has two large filter wheels in the optical path for a combined total of up to 16 filter selections and two clear positions for any given observing run. This number of available slots reduces the need to change filters between runs. In addition to the standard UBVRI broad-band filters, a set of narrow-band, interference filters is currently available with bandpasses of 1-10 nm. These filters are centered on diagnostic, nebular emission lines of the ions H+, He+, S+, N+, and O++ as well as nearby regions of the continuum. Future additions to the set will include filters centered on stellar and cometary molecular bands. We will present some of our early results from the use of the narrow-band filters. |
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| Weber, M. (talk) | | Automatic data reduction & archiving for STELLA | | | The data is collected at the observatory, each data product is registered and a queue is set up to transfer the highest priority observations first. Optionally, lossy compression can be used to boost transfer speeds for time critical observations. Once the data has been transfered, the reduction process is started at the control-center in Potsdam. The type of reduction steps required can be specified by the user or a default pipeline setup can be used. The users can be notified about the status of their observations in any desired detail. |
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| Y. Yoshii(1), Y. Kobayshi(2), and T. Minezaki(1), (1): Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Japan, (2): National Astronomical Observatory, Japan (talk) | | New results from the MAGNUM telescope on the dust distribution in AGNs | | | The most intense monitoring observations yet made were carried out for several nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies in the optical and near-infrared wave bands, using the multicolor imaging photometer mounted on the 2m MAGNUM telescope. A delayed response of light variations in the K band to those in the V band was detected for each galaxy, and the lag time was precisely measured within an accuracy of 5-10% by a cross-correlation analysis. The correlation between the optical luminosity and the lag time is presented combining our data with those of other Seyfert 1 galaxies in the literature. This correlation is interpreted as thermal dust reverberation in an AGN, where the near-infrared emission from an AGN is expected to be the thermal reradiation from hot dust surrounding the central engine at a radius where the temperature equals that of the dust sublimation temperature. We find that the inner radius of the dust torus, corresponding to the measured lag time, is well outside the broad-line region determined by other reverberation studies of the emission lines. |
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| Y. Yoshii(1), Y. Kobayshi(2), and T. Minezaki(1), 1: Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Japan, 2: National Astronomical Observatory, Japan (talk) | | The MAGNUM project | | | The MAGNUM (Multicolor Active Galactic Nuclei Monitoring) project is designed to carry out long-term monitoring observations of many AGNs in the optical and near-infrared wavelength regions. In order to obtain these observations, we built a 2m automated telescope as well as a multicolor imaging photometer (MIP). The telescope was located near the Haleakala summit at a height of 3050m within the area of the University of Hawaii's Haleakala Observatory on the Hawaiian Island of Maui. The MIP has a dichroic beam splitter that offers optical (UBVRI) and near-infrared (ZJHK) broad-band imaging observations at the same time. Preliminary observations were started early in 2001. We have recently realized a remote controlled, fully automated operation which is suitable to relatively simple and stable observations over many years. We present an overview of the project and its current status. |
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| Zacharias, N. (talk) | | Astrometric Reference Stars: from UCAC to URAT | | | Currently available astrometric catalogs will be reviewed, and instrumentation and observational issues discussed, particularly systematic errors and their control. The U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC) is an all-sky astrometric survey to 16th magnitude. It was observed with a semi-automated telescope on a low budget. The second data release (July 2003) contains positions and proper motions for over 48 million stars, the final release is expected in 2006. Design studies have been performed for a new 0.9-meter aperture USNO Robotic Astrometric Telescope (URAT) with a single chip (> 100 Mpixel), 3 degree FOV and circular symmetric pupil. Its operation is envisioned fully automatic, generating stellar positions on the 10 mas level to at least 18th magnitude with a limiting magnitude of about 20 to 21. These reference stars, being on an inertial system (linked to quasars) will be very beneficial for LSST, PanSTARRS and other projects. With a few years of observing absolute trigonometric parallaxes (5-20 mas, depending on magnitude) could be obtained for all stars accessible by URAT from an initially southern hemisphere location. |
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| Zerbi, F.M., and the REM/ROSS team (talk) | | Recent Results form the REM telescope | | | The Robotic Telescope REM with its infrared camera (REMIR) and its slitless optical spectrograph ROSS is now fully operational after commissioning and science verification phase. We present in this talk the functional scheme of the observatory and highlight some recent scientific results. |
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| Zolotukhin, I., Beskin, G., Biryukov, A., Bondar, S., Hurley, K., Ivanov, E., Karpov, S., Katkova, E., Pozanenko, A. (poster) | | Optical Camera with high temporal resolution to search for transients in the wide field | | | Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are one of the most powerful transient events in the Universe which are probably related with compact relativistic objects. Structure and properties of their central engine define fine time structure of GRB emission. At the same time a number of models predict generation of considerable optical flux during proper GRB event which can achieve 9-13 magnitude (it already was detected in GRB990123). Thus, search and study with high temporal resolution optical transients (OTs) synchronous with GRBs, can provide statistically reliable information about nature of these phenomena. To be successfull such observations have to be carried out independently of alerts receiving from space borne gamma-ray telescopes and use optical instruments with wide field of view. On the other hand this method gives possibility to detect and investigate short stochastic flares of different variable objects - SNs, flare stars, CVs, X-Ray binaries and NEOs, natural and artificial. To realize this approach wide field optical camera with high temporal resolution has been developed. Main objective (15 cm diameter, F/1.2) of the camera projects 20x17 degrees area onto image intensifier photocathode 90 mm in diameter (quantum efficiency - 10%, gain - 150, scaling factor - 0.22). Special optics transfers image from intesifier's output to the VS-CTT285-2001 TV-CCD camera (1380x1024 pixels with size of 6.5 microns) with frame frequency of 7.5 Hz (0.13 sec exposure time). Observational data is transmitted to the local PC which broadcasts it through the LAN to the storage computer equipped with RAID and to the PC for real-time processing. The chosen network configuration allows to keep raw data (partially availiable at http://rokos.sao.ru/history/history.php) obtained during 8 hours observing set with 0.13 s resolution and detect on the fly both stationary and moving OTs up to V < 11.5. System also provides classification of detected objects, magnitude and coordinates with 35 arcsec accuracy in 0.4 sec (3 frames). The camera operated in test mode from May to November, 2003; since November 2003 the camera monitors HETE-2 WXM field of view. Expected numbers of GRBs hitting in field of view of the camera which will be registered simultaneously with WXM (HETE-2) and BAT (SWIFT) are 1-2 and 4 per year, correspondingly. |
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