remote astronomy in the undergraduate astronomy curriculum at pomona college

Remote Astronomy in the Undergraduate Astronomy Curriculum at Pomona CollegeB. Penprase, A. Ates, J. Donovan (Pomona College), J. Keohane (Spitzer Science Center), E. Scire (Pomona College)

Abstract: Pomona College offers an array of telescopes in undergraduate research and teaching in astronomy. With the support of an NSF-CCLI grant, we have developed remote observing capabilities and used these with our undergraduates. The advantages of remote observing include reduced travel time for our students in using our 1-meter telescope, and the ease of access has increased our ability for variable star monitoring, asteroid observing and other synoptic projects.

In addition the scheduling of telescopes with remote connections can enable the observatory to be used more efficiently, over more of the evening and can share the telescope with students off campus, and even enable outreach projects with neighboring institutions and nearby high schools.

The additional capabilities have added a new dimension to our undergraduate astronomy curriculum. This year we were able to field “proposals” from our entire 45 student introductory class, and enable the team to conduct research-grade observing projects including narrow band imaging of galaxies, variable star monitoring, and even attempts at observing parallax in nearby solar system objects. We also conducted remote observing sessions from campus with our 1-meter telescope in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains, at Table Mountain.

We are interested in collaborating with other remotely operated observatories, and integrating into the undergraduate laboratories such tasks as measurements of asteroid parallaxes, simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of active galaxies, and long term monitoring of variable stars. Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to experiment with us in this exciting new observing mode.

40” Table Mountain Observatory. This telescope operates at 7500 feet near the town of Wrightwood, ,CA in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is equipped with an infrared camera, and an optical filter wheel, polarimeter system (described in a separate poster) and can be operated from campus using remote desktop software.14" Celestron OTA with Paramount ME ( "Whitney"). This telescope is located above our "Rock House" at the observatory and is our most modern on-campus telescope. It includes an Apogee Ap47 CCD, and an OPTEC intelligent filter wheel with filters that are LRGB for tricolor imaging. It also offers a piggypacked 4" refractor for lunar astronomy and white-light solar astronomy.

14" Celestron OTA with Paramount GT1100S ("Brackett"). This telescope is located in our larger dome above our classroom, and is a workhorse for remote observing. It offers an Apogee AP47p CCD camera with a True Tech. filter wheel. For many reasons, this telescope is our first choice for remote observing. Its camera and filter wheel are most reliable with remote client software, and it has offered stable observing for three years.

10" Meade LX-200 in Home Automation Systems ("Robodome"). This telescope is still somewhat experimental, but is a very compact dome on the roof of our observatory housing a small Meade telescope, and an ST9E CCD. This telescope is operated at f/3.0, which offers wide-angle views of objects. It is perfect for gaining experience and for doing wide-field surveys or images.

Pomona College Brackett Observatory, Claremont CA

The actual remote observing

Overview of our telescopes

Pomona College has a very powerful network of optical telescopes for use in astronomy research. Our remotely operable telescopes include two 14" telescopes, and a smaller 10" telescope sited at our on-campus Brackett Observatory. In addition we operate a research-grade 1-meter telescope at a dark site in the mountains near Wrightwood CA. Additional information on our telescopes and instruments can be found at the Pomona College astronomy site (http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu).

Below we describe our network of telescopes and some of our remote observing procedures.

Wait for your scheduled time; be sure to contact our team 1-2 days in advance to be sure all is ready.Then when you time has arrived, connect to our telescopes using the Bisque software. Before trying this step be sure to read through the excellent guide to remote astronomy, prepared by Mr. John Donvan, at:

http://aci50.astronomy.pomona.edu/common/webdocuments/IAServer/remote.html

The basic steps for connection are as follows:

Start up TheSky, and under telescope select “Internet Telescope” under the Telescope / Setup… tab.

Re-click on Telescope / Setup… to the Settings button.

Un-click the “Use Software Bisque’s Internet Astronomy Network” box (we are independent!).

Then enter the name and password you were given in your email, along with the email address of the telescope.

Click on Telescope / Link Establish

Now when you click on objects or type “F” to find objects, you can move the telescope. This is done by clicking on the little telescope icon which comes up with the information window. You can check if the telescope has moved by looking at our web cams at:

http://aci50.astronomy.pomona.edu/common/webdocuments/webcast.html

More information on all of this including screen captures can be found at our site:


To take a picture, just do the same steps with CCDSOFT.

Start CCD soft, and under Camera Setup.. select “Internet Camera”

Then reclick on Camera Setup.., unclick the “Use Software Bisque’s Internet Astronomy Network” box

Then click on Camera / Link Establish to link to the camera

Then take pictures using Camera / Take Exposure.

After a wait a picture should appear on your screen – you are ready to observe!

If you would like to remotely observe with our telescopes, here is a list of items you should do to prepare for your run. Much more information is available on our web site, but this guide will help you prepare and conduct a remote observing run.

Before you start, you need to acquire a good computer with a reasonably fast internet connection. All of our tests so far have been on-campus or from DSL equipped sites. If your campus is not equipped with good internet access, consider asking for it, and perhaps use this project as an incentive!

Scheduling

Contact our staff to schedule a date and time for your observing. Please send email to all of us on our "team" so we can discuss the schedule and make sure we are ready. If you can provide three dates which work for you we can choose one which works best for us. Also any general information like "any Friday night betwen now and March works for us" is actually helpful for us in scheduling.

Send this email with the following items included: scheduling information, number of students you want to have observe (include if possible demographic information about the number of female and minority students), number of hours needed, types of objects you want to observe, and scientific or educational goals to the following people:

Bryan Penprase [email protected], Observatory Director and Associate Prof.Alper Ates [email protected], Staff astronomer, and Laboratory instructor.John Donovan [email protected], Consultant, and engineer (Pomona class of '01).

We will advise you on the best time, and perhaps also suggest modifications to your observing program. We will also update you on our observatory status. You will receive an email something like that below, which will provide you with a window for observing, the IP address of the remote telescope and an account name and password:

--------------SAMPLE EMAIL-----------------You have been scheduled for Monday evening thru Thursday evening, from 9:00pm to 10:00pm, on the telescope "Whitney". Your Observatory Technician will be on call at each of those times.

User Name: jteacherPassword: starsrusIP Address: 134.173.84.32Scheduled for: 9:00pm - 10:00pmYour Observatory Technician will be John. John can be reached at (909)607-2246, or at AOL Instant Messenger "glassman047".

Prepare your site for the remote observing

Make sure you have a place where students can observe with good internet, ample space to sit while waiting for exposures, and if possible a projector or large monitor for showing the images to the group. Be sure to acquire the remote astronomy client disk “Internet Astronomy Suite” from Software Bisque and install all the software. In addition to the software on the disk, you need several updates, and "hot fixes" to make it work with our system. You can get a cleint disk for your site for only about $30 from the Software Bisque web site. This disk includes both TheSky and CCDsoft. More information on this can be found at the Bisque web site:

http ://www.bisque.com/Products/ias/default.asp

We also like to use an instant messenger program like AOL instant messenger, to help communicate during the run. We can email you the links on our web site for the necessary hot fixes.

We also have a set of disks which we can send to you for loan, much like the “NETFLIX” company does. To do this, please email us a stamped self-addressed envelope. Our address is:

Remote Observing Institute / Dr. Bryan Penprase / Pomona College Department of Physics and Astronomy / 610 N. College Ave.Claremont CA 91711

We will also include a special disk for installing all the necessary hot fixes to make the software run, and a self-addressed stamped envelope to help you return the disks when you are done installing. Our terms require you to use the Bisque software for your observing sessions only and to not distribute the disk, and you should uninstall the software when you are done, since we only have a finite number of licenses.. At this time all the software is designed for PC platforms. When you have all your software installed and running you are ready to try observing!

Below: Pomona student Millicent Maier (’05) sharing Mars observations on our 14” telescope “Whitney” with the public. This telescope can also be operated remotely for projects such as parallax of asteroids, variable stars, and AGN monitoring.

Actual results and images from student projects during academic year 2003 and 2004 at Pomona College. Above left is our “remote observing room” where we can control our 14” telescopes and mountaintop 40” telescope using remote software. In this picture two teams of intro students are gathering data for their final observing projects.

Light curves of variable stars, such as those of W Uma(below) and AM Leo (above) are ideally suited for remote observing, and these Astronomy 1 light curves enabled our intro students to gain experience of a research-grade observing project. For upper level students the additional efficiency in acquiring data remotely allows more advanced quantitative analysis.

At left is an image of M51Taken by our intro students.Additional images were acquiredfrom our control room by five or six teams of student observers, who can efficiently observe remotely and analyze their data at the same time.

Abstract

Checklist for steps needed for remote observing

Overview of our suite of remotely operable telescopes

Our 14” telescope “Whitney” (above) and our 10” rooftop telescope called “Robodome’ (below)








