The Case for a New CONCAM3

Robert J. Nemiroff for the

CONCAM Collaboration

The CONCAM Global Network

•Asterisks denote operational CONCAMs•CONCAMs support many of the world’s major observatories.•CONCAMs now view most of the night sky, most of the time.

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The CONCAM CollaborationPeople

• Faculty

• Robert Nemiroff (Michigan Tech, PI)

• J. Bruce Rafert (Michigan Tech)

• Noah Brosch (Tel Aviv U.)

• Chris Impey (Arizona)

• John Oliver (U. Florida)

• Postdocs (partial time)

• Wellesley E. Pereira (Michigan Tech)

• Andre Phillips (Siding Spring Obs.)

• Dolores Perez-Ramirez (ESA)

• http://concam.net System Manager• Dave Torrey (Michigan Tech)

• Graduate Student• Lior Shamir (Michgian Tech)

• Undergraduate Students• Dan Corell (Michigan Tech)• Andrew Fleming (Michgan Tech)• Kristie Walivaara (Michigan Tech)• H. Nishimura (Michigan Tech)

• many others have helped the CONCAM project in many ways.

Reasons to have a CONCAM

• Near real-time images useful for making instantaneous observing decisions

• Keeps telescope operators in the dome

• Keeps remote observers in the loop

• Archive answers sky-history questions

• Good PR for Mauna Kea

CONCAM2 vs. CONCAM3

• Observatories that still operate a CONCAM2:– Kitt Peak, Mt. Wilson, Florida U., Wise (Israel)

• Observatories that already have a CONCAM3:– European Northern Obs. (Canary Islands),

Siding Spring (Australia), SALT site (South Africa)

Reasons to stay with the CONCAM collaboration

• Experience designing and deploying CONCAMs• Existing base of control software• Existing base of science software

– active NSF Information Technology Research (ITR) grant

• A multi-national collaboration that leverages CONCAMs inherent education/outreach potential– active NSF Course Curriculum and Lab Improvement

(CCLI) grant

Reasons to upgrade to a CONCAM3

• The Mauna Kea CONCAM is over 2.5 years old– Only the Kitt Peak CONCAM is older

– The Kitt Peak (KP) CONCAM has recently suffered from the loss of both its CCD camera and its laptop. They are both being replaced (our dime) but KP will likely upgrade also this year

• CONCAM3s are better than CONCAM2s– Smaller PSF means more stars visible means better photometry

– Larger CCD means allows more standard optics

– Larger computer means more/better on-site processing

– Many small improvements in hardware and engineering design• We’re learned a lot over the past four years of building CONCAMs

Future Services of the CONCAM Project

• Real time photometry files– Needed step to create below all-sky maps– Allows separation of emissivity from opacity

• Real time all-sky emissivity maps– 0.10 magnitude sensitivity (wide band)– will show sky glow including reflected light from bright clouds, inherent

airglow, and zodiacal light– will show change in sky glow from canonical clear sky taken at same

sidereal time

• Real time all-sky opacity maps– 0.25 magnitude sensitivity (wide band)– will show sky opacity from clouds, including cirrus

Preliminary All-Sky Emissivity Map(Taken from Canary Island CONCAM3)

Raw CONAM3 image from CI Corresponding All-sky Emissivity MapStars, point sources subtracted;m_skyglow ranges from 21.5 to 20.3, relative to some baseline standard

Preliminary All-Sky Opacity Map(Taken by Canary Island CONCAM3)

Raw CONCAM3 image from CI Computed all-sky opacity map(altitude > 25 degrees; smoothed)

What to expect in the near future from http://concam.net

• Real time atmospheric emissivity and opacity maps updated every 3m56s

• Dynamic web interface allowing user queries of more detailed sky information

Limitations

• Bright moon still not solved for -- maps reliable only when there is no moon

• Detailed maps will be taken off-line on the time scale of days. Although archived on DVD, we just don’t have the on-line storage capacity for all the new FITS files

• Uptime fraction likely to remain below 100% (but likely above 90%)