Colour equations for UK Schmidt Telescope Tech-Pan film exposures

Kodak Technical Pan (Tech-Pan) film is a standard panchromatic emulsion that was used at the UK 1.2-m Schmidt Telescope (UKST) for a variety of broad-band exposures between 1992 and 2003. However, despite its versatility and frequent use, no formal presentation of its colour-term stability has been provided. A sample of 32 short-exposure Tech-Pan films was specifically acquired in five wavebands with a view to establishing the photometric relationships between Tech-Pan and the equivalent glass-based emulsions previously used. These films have been measured using the SuperCOSMOS measuring machine and the data reduced to provide the appropriate quantitative information. New colour terms relating these measurements to the Cousins photoelectric system are presented. They are shown to be stable, reproducible, generally small and similar to colour terms previously derived for the older emulsions on glass that Tech-Pan effectively replaced. These results give confidence in the use of Tech-Pan photometry from on-line UKST legacy survey archives.     

The WASP project in the era of robotic telescope networks

We present the current status of the WASP project, a pair of wide angle photometric telescopes, individually called Super‐WASP. SuperWASP‐I is located in La Palma, and SuperWASP‐II at Sutherland in South Africa. SW‐I began operations in April 2004. SW‐II is expected to be operational in early 2006. Each SuperWASP instrument consists of up to 8 individual cameras using ultra‐wide field lenses backed by high‐quality passively cooled CCDs. Each camera covers 7.8 × 7.8 sq degrees of sky, for nearly 500 sq degrees of total sky coverage. One of the current aims of the WASP project is the search for extra‐solar planet transits with a focus on brighter stars in the magnitude range ∼8 to 13. Additionally, WASP will search for optical transients, track Near‐Earth Objects, and study many types of variable stars and extragalactic objects. The collaboration has developed a custom‐built reduction pipeline that achieves better than 1 percent photometric precision. We discuss future goals, which include: nightly on‐mountain reductions that could be used to automatically drive alerts via a small robotic telescope network, and possible roles of the WASP telescopes as providers in such a network. Additional technical details of the telescopes, data reduction, and consortium members and institutions can be found on the web site at: http://www.superwasp.org/. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

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)     

ULTRACAM: an ultrafast, triple-beam CCD camera for high-speed astrophysics

ULTRACAM is a portable, high-speed imaging photometer designed to study faint astronomical objects at high temporal resolutions. ULTRACAM employs two dichroic beamsplitters and three frame-transfer CCD cameras to provide three-colour optical imaging at frame rates of up to 500 Hz. The instrument has been mounted on both the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma and the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope in Chile, and has been used to study white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, pulsars, black hole/neutron star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, extrasolar planets, flare stars, ultracompact binaries, active galactic nuclei, asteroseismology and occultations by Solar System objects (Titan, Pluto and Kuiper Belt objects). In this paper we describe the scientific motivation behind ULTRACAM, present an outline of its design and report on its measured performance.     

RoboNet‐II: Follow‐up observations of microlensing events with a robotic network of telescopes

RoboNet‐II uses a global network of robotic telescopes to perform follow‐up observations of microlensing events in the Galactic Bulge. The current network consists of three 2 m telescopes located in Hawaii and Australia (owned by Las Cumbres Observatory) and the Canary Islands (owned by Liverpool John Moores University). In future years the network will be expanded by deploying clusters of 1 m telescopes in other suitable locations. A principal scientific aim of the RoboNet‐II project is the detection of cool extra‐solar planets by the method of gravitational microlensing. These detections will provide crucial constraints to models of planetary formation and orbital migration. RoboNet‐II acts in coordination with the PLANET microlensing follow‐up network and uses an optimization algorithm (“web‐PLOP”) to select the targets and a distributed scheduling paradigm (eSTAR) to execute the observations. Continuous automated assessment of the observations and anomaly detection is provided by the ARTEMiS system (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

MiCPhot： A prime-focus multicolor CCD photometer on the 85-cm Telescope

We describe a new BVRI multicolor CCD photometric system situated at the prime focus of the 85-cm telescope at the Xinglong Station of NAOC. Atmospheric extinction effects, photometric accuracy and color calibration dependence of the system are investigated. Additional attention was paid to giving observers guidance in estimating throughput, detection limit, signal-to-noise ratio and exposure time.     

The new IRSOL solar telescope control system

We would like to present a new control system for the solar telescope now in operation at the Swiss institute, Istituto Ricerche Solari Locarno (IRSOL). The control software is multi‐client capable, and optionally uses the primary image of the sun projected on a position sensor or the axis encoder for guiding. The hardware and software consist of three completely separate levels, which communicate with each other via ASCII commands. We shall describe the general principles implemented in the course of the development. We consider it important that this text is also applicable to other astronomical device controls. Therefore we explain our specific solution next to general principles (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

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 GREGOR telescope control system

This article describes the architecture of the new GREGOR telescope and its instrument control system. A short summary is given on the communication structure between instruments and other devices during observation. Because of its importance to all instruments the main functions of the telescope control system are described in detail (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Pendular seismometer for correcting telescope vibrations

Vibrations of telescopes can be successfully corrected in real time using a seismometer as an inertial reference. A prototype pendular seismometer is described that is suitable for angular vibration measurements at frequencies from a few tenths to several tens of Hz. The average pendulum position is maintained by a slow servo system that also damps its resonance. The prototype instrument has an rms noise of 3 milliarcsec in the 0–25-Hz band. It was tested on a 1-m telescope, and a good agreement of the seismometer signal with the direct optical measurements of the optical axis fluctuations of the telescope was found. A frequency response of the seismometer is studied, an expression for the rms amplitude of residual (uncompensated) vibrations is given. In space applications it is suggested that a pendular mirror in front of the telescope is used as an inertial reference for vibration correction.     

Heterogenous telescope networks: An introduction

The first Heterogenous Telescopes Network (HTN) conference was held in July 2005. It aimed to bring together software developers, observatory staff and science users with the objective of defining the how and why of developing new ways of doing astronomical observing using geographically distributed and differently instrumented and operated telescopes. The papers included in this volume arise from that conference. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A protocol standard for heterogeneous telescope networks

The scientific need for a standard protocol permitting the exchange of generic observing services is rapidly escalating as more observatories adopt service observing as a standard operating mode and as more remote or robotic telescopes are brought on‐line. To respond to this need, we present the results of the first interoperability workshop for Heterogeneous Telescope Networks (HTN) held in Exeter. We present a draft protocol, designed to be independent of the specific instrumentation and software that controls the remote and/or robotic telescopes, allowing these telescopes to appear to the user with a unified interface despite any underlying architectural differences. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

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)     

Gregor@night: The future high‐resolution stellar spectrograph for the GREGOR solar telescope

We describe the future night‐time spectrograph for the GREGOR solar telescope and present its science core projects. The spectrograph provides a 3‐pixel resolution of up to R = 87 000 in 45 échelle orders covering the wavelength range 390‐900 nm with three grating settings. An iodine cell can be used for high‐precision radial velocity work in the 500‐630 nm range. The operation of the spectrograph and the telescope will be fully automated without the presence of humans during night‐time and will be based on the successful STELLA control system. Future upgrades include a second optical camera for even higher spectral resolution, a Stokes‐V polarimeter and a link to the laser‐frequency comb at the Vacuum Tower Telescope. The night‐time core projects are a study of the angular‐momentum evolution of “The Sun in Time” and a continuation of our long‐term Doppler imaging of active stars (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)