Time‐sensitive astronomy in non‐robotic telescopes

Protocols for dealing with time‐sensitive observations have traditionally focused on robotic telescope networks and other types of automated dedicated facilities, mostly in the optical domain. Using UKIRT and JCMT as examples, which are infrared and sub‐millimetre telescopes with a traditional PI‐dominated user base, we discuss how such facilities can join a heterogeneous telescope network to their mutual advantage. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

XMM‐Newton operations beyond the 10‐year design lifetime

In preparation for XMM‐Newton operations beyond the 10‐year design lifetime ESA instigated an independent review of all aspects of the mission. Unsurprisingly, the review found that the scientific interest in extending the mission is very high and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. Most importantly, all the elements of the XMM‐Newton mission were found to be stable and trouble free with sufficient consumables and life‐limited items to allow operations of the mission until at least 2018. The review endorsed the proposal to combine elements of the Flight Control Team with those from INTEGRAL and remove real‐time instrument monitoring from ESAC in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

New challenges for adaptive optics: extremely large telescopes

The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100-m diameter ground-based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60 per cent is achieved at 0.5 μm with a limiting magnitude of the AO guide source near R   magnitude~10, at the cost of an extremely low sky coverage. To alleviate this problem, the concept of tomographic wavefront sensing in a wider field of view using either natural guide stars (NGS) or laser guide stars (LGS) is investigated. These methods use three or four reference sources and up to three deformable mirrors, which increase up to 8-fold the corrected field size (up to 60 arcsec at 0.5 μm). Operation with multiple NGS is limited to the infrared (in the J band this approach yields a sky coverage of 50 per cent with a Strehl ratio of 0.2). The option of open-loop wavefront correction in the visible using several bright NGS is discussed. The LGS approach involves the use of a faint ( R ~22) NGS for low-order correction, which results in a sky coverage of 40 per cent at the Galactic poles in the visible.     

The eSTAR network – agent architectures for astronomy

The eSTAR Project uses intelligent agent technologies to carry out resource discovery, submit observation requests and analyze the reduced data returned from a meta‐network of robotic telescopes. Linking ground based telescopes with astronomical satellites, and using the emerging field of intelligent agent architectures to provide crucial autonomous decision making in software, the project has succeeded in combining data archives and research class telescopes, along with distributed computing nodes, to build an ad‐hoc peer‐to‐peer heterogeneous network of resources. We present the current operations paradigm of the eSTAR network and describe the direction in which the project intends to develop over the next few years. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Pointing and tracking analysis of alt‐azimuthal multi‐focus telescopes: the THEMIS case

We discuss the pointing and tracking configuration of THEMIS which may be considered as representative of those alt‐azimuthal telescopes with an optical configuration with multiple focal planes, not all locked to both the alt‐azimuthal coordinates. In the THEMIS case two focal planes are present. The primary focus F1 is locked to the alt‐azimuthal mount, while the secondary focus F2 (which is used by the instruments), is only locked to the azimuth angle. The different contributions to the final accuracy of both absolute pointing and tracking as observed at F2 are defined, and an extimation of the contribution of each component of the whole chain which affects the field position at F2 (software, mechanical and optical) is given. The experimental data are the result of a test campaign carried on at THEMIS in February and March 2002. We can say that (a) for all the used observing configurations, the tracking accuracy is coherent at any point along the trajectory with the correspondent absolute pointing accuracy, which is an indication for the quality of the telescope dynamical performances (b) the main contribution to the residual field shift which is observed at F2 arises from the opto‐mechanical alignment configuration of the optics between F1 and F2, which therefore is the crucial point for such multi‐focus configuration. More informations can be found at the official THEMIS website (http://www.themis.iac.es).     

Preparing the GREGOR solar telescope for night‐time use: Deriving a pointing model

We report on the results of a dedicated campaign to derive a pointing model for the GREGOR solar telescope which took place in December 2011. Two main goals were in the focus of this campaign: first to prove the aptness of the GREGOR solar telescope for night‐time, unattended operations and second to derive some qualitative measure of the amount of misalignment in the optical and mechanical parts of the telescope. In the final version, a root‐mean‐square deviation (RMSD) of 1.6″ for the azimuth model and an RMSD of 2.3″ in the elevation model could be achieved (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

CTK‐II & RTK: The CCD‐cameras operated at the auxiiary telescopes of the University Observatory Jena

The Cassegrain‐Teleskop‐Kamera (CTK‐II) and the Refraktor‐Teleskop‐Kamera (RTK) are two CCD‐imagers which are operated at the 25 cm Cassegrain and 20cm refractor auxiliary telescopes of the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the main characteristics of these instruments. The properties of the CCD‐detectors, the astrometry, the image quality, and the detection limits of both CCD‐cameras, as well as some results of ongoing observing projects, carried out with these instruments, are presented. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

AXIOM: Advanced X‐ray imaging of the magnetosheath

AXIOM (Advanced X‐ray Imaging Of the Magnetosphere) is a concept mission which aims to explain how the Earth's magnetosphere responds to the changing impact of the solar wind using a unique method never attempted before; performing wide‐field soft X‐ray imaging and spectroscopy of the magnetosheath, magnetopause and bow shock at high spatial and temporal resolution. Global imaging of these regions is possible because of the solar wind charge exchange (SWCX) process which produces elevated soft X‐ray emission from the interaction of high charge‐state solar wind ions with primarily neutral hydrogen in the Earth's exosphere and near‐interplanetary space (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A scientific case for XMM‐Newton continuation

The presentations made at the workshop “XMM‐Newton: The Next Decade”, held at ESAC from 4th to the 6th of July 2007, contained an overwhelming amount of new results and well justified scientific questions that can be addressed by observations with XMM‐Newton. XMM‐Newton has over the next decade a solid scientific case. Given the high impact of X‐ray observations, XMM‐Newton operations are not only a matter for “X‐ray astrophysics”, but also of fundamental importance for astrophysics in general. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Astrometry from Space: New Design of the GAIA Mission

An interferometric astrometric mission, aiming at accuracies at around the10 microarcsec level, was recommended as a high priority concept within thenew ESA Horizon 2000+ scientific programme. The original outline concept forsuch a mission, GAIA, presented its general feasibility but did not addressmany questions of implementation or optimisation. Another concept of aninterferometer for a scanning astrometric satellite is presented. It containsa simpler optical telescope and a more efficient detector system. The designutilizes the full resolution of all light in the dispersed fringes of aFizeau interferometer. A preliminary optimization of the satellite indicatesthat two telescope units with a baseline of 100 cm will achieve a precisionof 3, 8, 22, 68, 302 microarcsec for parallaxes of stars with V = 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 mag, respectively, from a 5 year mission. Simultaneousspectrophotometry of the entire spectrum of each star will be obtained with aresolution corresponding to intermediate band photometry. The expectedprecision of this photometry is about 0.003 mag for V = 16. The performance is good in crowded fields, at least up to one star per 5 arcsec2. A Hipparcos-type beam combiner of 150 cm width is placed in front of atelescope with 4 square apertures of 50 cm. The assumed focal length is f = 60 m and the field 0.5 degree diameter. The detector consists of CCDs used for time delayed integration (drift-scan.)     

Spectro‐polarimetry in the era of large solar telescopes

This paper discusses some of the challenges of spectro‐polarimetric observations with a large aperture solar telescope such as the ATST or the EST. The observer needs to reach a compromise between spatial and spectral resolution, time cadence, and signal‐to‐noise ratio, as only three of those four parameters can be pushed to the limit. Tunable filters and grating spectrographs provide a natural compromise as the former are more suitable for high‐spatial resolution observations while the latter are a better choice when one needs to work with many wavelengths at full spectral resolution. Given the requirements for the new science targeted by these facilities, it is important that 1) tunable filters have some multi‐wavelength capability; and 2) grating spectrographs have some 2D field of view (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The short history of infrared space telescopes

While astronomical telescopes developed rather slowly over the last four centuries, infrared telescopes made a fast career in only four decades from high mountains to aircraft, balloons and satellites. They cover the huge wavelength region from 1 to 350 μ m and have uncovered the cold and dust hidden universe. While until today all infrared space telescopes had diameters of <1 m, cooled infrared observatories with 3.5 to 6.5m mirrors will be sent into heliocentric orbits at L2 within the next few years (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Fast guiding and small telescopes in the 8-m era

Fast guiding may improve the images delivered by telescopes. It may be implemented fairly cheaply and offers an upgrade path to smaller telescopes, which will make them more useful in the 8-m era. However, the detailed performance of a fast guiding system must depend on many parameters and this makes it difficult to assess its precise scientific benefits. This paper provides a comprehensive mathematical framework for calculating the performance of fast guiding systems. A range of models has been calculated that illustrates the benefits for telescopes of various sizes in various wavelength ranges. Three measures of performance have been examined: FWHM, 50 per cent encircled energy diameter and energy concentration in a 0.35-arcsec aperture. Typical gains over natural seeing are found to be in the 20 to 40 per cent range at useful levels of sky coverage. Other things being equal, small telescopes do not benefit as much as large ones from fast guiding. The sensitivity of these benefits to assumptions has also been examined, and this highlights the need to operate in the correct wavelength range for the aperture in question. The largest perturbations to ideal models are likely to be the result of telescope windshake and the outer scale of turbulence. If there is appreciable windshake, fast guiding will yield larger benefits than expected from the natural seeing. A short outer scale (a few hundred metres) will, however, lose most of the gains.     

Status of the ROTSE‐III telescope network

ROTSE‐III is a homogeneous worldwide array of 4 robotic telescopes. They were designed to provide optical observations of γ ‐ray burst (GRB) afterglows as close as possible to the start of γ ‐ray emission. ROTSE‐III is fulfilling its potential for GRB science, and provides optical observations for a variety of astrophysical sources in the interim between GRB events. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

STK: A new CCD camera at the University Observatory Jena

The Schmidt‐Teleskop‐Kamera (STK) is a new CCD‐imager, which is operated since begin of 2009 at the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the main characteristics of the new camera. The properties of the STK detector, the astrometry and image quality of the STK, as well as its detection limits at the 0.9 m telescope of the University Observatory Jena are presented (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Studying focal ratio degradation of optical fibres with a core size of 50 μm for astronomy

Along with the spectral attenuation properties, the focal ratio degradation (FRD) properties of optical fibres are the most important for instrumental applications in astronomy. We present a special study about the FRD of optical fibres with a core size of 50 μm to evaluate the effects of stress when mounting the fibre. Optical fibres like this were used to construct the Eucalyptus integral field unit. This fibre is very susceptible to the FRD effects, especially after the removal of the acrylate buffer. This operation is sometimes necessary to allow close packing of the fibres at the input to the spectrograph. Without the acrylate buffer, the protection of the cladding and core of the fibre may be easily damaged. In the near future, fibres of this size will be used to build the Southern Observatory for Astronomical Research (SOAR) integral field unit spectrograph (SIFS) and other instruments. It is important to understand the correct procedure which minimizes any increase in FRD during the construction of the instrument.     

Field optimization and CCD data simulation for the antarctic International Concordia Explorer Telescope (ICE‐T)

We performed extensive data simulations for the planned ultra‐wide‐field, high‐precision photometric telescope ICE‐T (International Concordia Explorer Telescope). ICE‐T consists of two 60 cm‐aperture Schmidt telescopes with a joint field of view simultaneously in two photometric bandpasses. Two CCD cameras, each with a single 10.3k × 10.3k thinned back‐illuminated device, would image a sky field of 65 square degrees. Given a location of the telescope at Dome C on the East Antarctic Plateau, we searched for the star fields that best exploit the technical capabilities of the instrument and the site. We considered the effects of diurnal air mass and refraction variations, solar and lunar interference, interstellar absorption, overexposing of bright stars and ghosts, crowding by background stars, and the ratio of dwarf to giant stars in the field. Using NOMAD, SSA, Tycho‐2 and 2MASS‐based stellar positions and BVIJH magnitudes for these fields, we simulated the effects of the telescope's point‐spread‐function, the integration, and the co‐addition times. Simulations of transit light curves are presented for the selected star fields and convolved with the expected instrumental characteristics. For the brightest stars, we showed that ICE‐T should be capable of detecting a 2 R_Earth Super Earth around a G2 solar‐type star, as well as an Earth around an M0‐star – if these targets were as abundant as hot Jupiters. Simultaneously, the telescope would monitor the host star's surface activity in an astrophysically interpretable manner (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The NST: First results and some lessons for ATST and EST

In January 2009, first light observations with the NST (New Solar Telescope) in Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) were made. NST has a 1.7 m primary with a 1.6 m clear aperture. First observational results in TiO and Hα are shown and discussed. The NST primary mirror is the most aspheric telescope mirror deployed to date. The NST is early in its commissioning, and the plans for this phase will be sketched. Lessons learned in building and implementing the NST are germane for the ATST and EST telescopes and will be discussed. The NST has an off‐axis Gregorian configuration consisting of a parabolic primary, heat‐stop, elliptical secondary and diagonal flats. The focal ratio of the primary mirror is f/2.4. The working wavelength range covers from 0.4 to 1.7 µm in the Coudé Lab beneath the telescope and all wavelengths including the far infrared at the Nasmyth focus on the dome floor (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)