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The Beacon Observatory an update/overview Dirk Froebrich.

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Presentation on theme: "The Beacon Observatory an update/overview Dirk Froebrich."— Presentation transcript:

1 The Beacon Observatory an update/overview Dirk Froebrich

2 Layout of the talk 1) Funding 2) Managment 3) Progress planned Dome/Telescope/Detector 4) Undergrad Student Projects/Science 5) Outreach 6) Teaching 7) To-do list

3 Funding £ 100.000,- as one of the Beacon ProjectsBeacon Projects from the 50th anniversary fund + £ 2.000,- from HOYS-CAPS (UoK) + dome foundation and LAN from Estates (UoK) + 1 day/week in WAM (SPS) + teaching/outreach (SPS/STFC) +...

4 Management Observatory WebsiteWebsite run by small executive group made up of CAPS members, outreach officer, technician annual elections of key positions

5 Progress/Plans Tender process for purchase has finished 3.5m dome ~40cm diameter reflector telescope ~1deg FoV 4k x 4k science CCD, BVRIH  filter set fast read out webcam guider, weather station, 2  IR webcam

6 Progress/Plans Complete remote controllable! Observations from INGRAM 106 Schedule priorities: Projects/Science/Outreach ToO overwrites weekend/holiday ‘specials‘

7 Student/Science Projects Monitoring of young clusters in conjunction with HOYS-CAPS long term photometric monitoring of young stars find rare accretion burst events or dimming due to extinction variations in disks

8 Student/Science Projects Impact flashes on the Moon monitor the Moon with fast readout webcam to ID light flashes from impacts determine frequency and brightness distribution

9 Student/Science Projects Rotation periods of asteroids photometric monitoring of asteroids determine their rotation periods

10 Student/Science Projects Extra Solar Planets precision photometry of stars showing transits of extrasolar planets measure planetary radii, periods, TTVs, etc.

11 Student/Science Projects Slitless spectroscopy GD plans to get a PH600/PH700 student to design and build a simple slitless spectrograph Used for low-res spectroscopy of stars or esp. Impact flashes

12 Outreach take nice images of photogenic objects for newsletter and PR Open days / Nights? school competitions for observing nights public/amateur contributions to science projects

13 Teaching mid-long term: develop undergrad lab/teaching other than project work Use data for PH512 to offer this module for all Astro students (not just ASSA) as stage2 lab course

14 Teaching data can be used also in: PH600 projects (module currently under re-design) any computing/image processing module can use: science data calibration data weather data

15 To-do list order, build dome, install telescope (Jan/Mar?) set-up/test controll software – first light (April?) write/domument data reduction software write health and safety manual Organise Opening Ceremony (May?)..........


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