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Observatory, telescope and equipment advice needed!

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18 years 6 months ago #28150 by eclipsedan

Dan,

I would just like to second everything that has been said before. Especially Dave McD's advice about getting the goals straight. I would go even further than that and decide what the criteria for success of each goal should be.



Hey Dave,

Nice to hear from you on this. Yes, it's obvious to me now that a goal based approach is the way to go. Of course I didn't even know what the potential goals might be before sounding this out here, so I'm learning already! My plan is to get in touch with various observatories and talk it out with them (I reckon we've maybe a year or two in which to do this). I won't be going it alone :wink:

Also some of the goals you might have in mind may not be possible from light polluted Dublin.


I was acutely aware of this. In fact I didn't imagine much deep sky imaging could take place without being ruined by the pollution. As regards astrophoto goals, I'm going to have to sit down and give it a long think...

I dont know how to put what I'm about to say other than bluntly. If you wish to spend 100K on this project you need to employ the services of a team who will analyse your requirements and build the facility around it. You cannot do this yourself with the well meaning (and excellent) advice of people on a bulletin board. This is the blunt bit (forgive me) It does not appear to me that you are in the position (experience, knowledge) to make the critical choices needed to make this a success. You need a project management team around you for a project of this scale. However the good news is I think you are aware of that.


I think I've made it pretty clear that I know nothing of operations on this scale. We very much will have a team behind us. I haven't been given a blank cheque and been told to come back with an observatory! We'll do our homework (or have others do it for us).

I often dreamt of what I would do with 100K to spend on astronomy. I came to the conclusion that I would not spend that kind of money on equipment sited in Dublin or even Ireland for that matter. I know location is fixed for you but I can assure you that that class of equipment cannot be used to near its maximum potential at a site in urban Dublin.


Nor would I spend it for a Dublin site if I had the choice. But I don't have that choice, so it's not particularly worth considering. I'm fully aware that being in a light-polluted area is of a serious disadvantage. Still, if this offer was put your way, I think you might take it :lol:

However you decide to proceed, I wish you well with the project and hope it meets all your expectaions and much more.


I more hope that it will turn out to be a valuable facility for the public, amateur astronomers, (possibly) graduate astronomers and our students.



Oh by the way, I've got some eclipse images from Libya. Any chance you could have a quick go at stacking them? I'd seriously appreciate it!

Thanks

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18 years 6 months ago #28153 by dmcdona

Thats what the software is for :-)


I received a copy of Canopus a few weeks ago and Brian D Warners book on lightcurve photomtry and analysis.

All I can say is that its scaring the beejeesus out of me. And I though Astrometrica was a hard piece of software :shock:

I take your point on 'meaningful' - I would class 'meaningful' as of use to the professionals - but of course it could equally be meaningful to just those involved in the study. Any asteroids with mag variations of greater than 0.5 have been light-curved to death! Unfortunatley, and this goes for astrometry too, the data professions would find meaningful involves very dim objects (mag 17+ for astrometry and probably mag 15+ for photometry). And for that, you need serious kit - probably about 100k's worth as it happens :wink:

I have to say, this is an excellent discussion. It has given me a lot of food for though about my own goals (mostly confirming that I'm on the right track :D ) but I think it also shows that we are able to contribute at what you could almost call a professional level (who said amateur?).

Dan - whatever you do, take the best advice you can get - commensurate with the amount of money you'll spend. If its the 50 - 100K, I'd be talking to a professional observatory supplier. I'd also be taking advice from a project management guru.

Whatever you do though, I really hope it works out for you and I commend the idea - it really is great that you guys are truly shooting for the stars!

The very best of luck

Dave

ps - just got a mail announcing the first discovery of an extrasolar planet by a group of amateurs. I think an amateur confirmed one last year - these guys have just confirmed one. So, it can be done!

I am very pleased to announce that an exoplanet search program I
have been involved with has detected its first transiting exoplanet.
The planet is a Jupiter sized world orbiting an 11th magnitude G1V
star. Called the XO Project, it is lead by Dr. Peter McCullough
(STScI) and has several amateur members. A paper describing the
discovery has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical
Journal.

Using equipment and software that would be familiar to any of us,
including TheSky, Paramount ME, Canon 200mm lenses and Apogee CCD
cameras, Dr. McCullough began collecting stellar photometry data in
2003.

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18 years 6 months ago #28163 by dave_lillis
In terms of astrophotography, if you are in dublin, then you will need serious filter sets for this, you will probabily make alot of use of a night time h-alpha filter for deepsky objects.
This requires very long exposures, so the mount is even more critical.

IF and its a big IF the meade max mount is as good as meade say it is in terms of periodic error then it really is the ultimate mount in my humble opinion and will carry any RCOS scope out there. If you're going to be doing astrophotography, you will be using a PC, end of story, so not having a hand controller for the paramount is not really an issue.
Your choice here is really a paramount or max mount, a 16" on a astrophysics is pushing the limits from what I see on the web (especially if money is not an issue)

The RCX tube is out of the question as it cannot run without the supplied fork mount, so really you're looking at the following for a tube,
16" LX200R (I wouldnt pick the normal lx200 over this)
16" RCOS be it a tube ot truss
20" RCOS, tube or truss (MY FAVOURITE HERE)

These are fantastic scopes for deepsky, but not the best for planets, for those you really do need a 6" apo refractor.
For planetary imaging, the refractor with a simple webcam is a great choice and will work regardless of any light pollution. You could buy a 90mm coronado filter for this scope to save on cost.

As for an observatory, its gotta be a dome for a setup like this.

You will have nights that the 20" scope will show more bad seeing then a smaller scope, BUT for CCD imaging SBIG supply the AO7 which is an adaptive optics setup.

So for deepsky imaging this is the setup I'd go for the
sbig AO-L adaptive optics
sbig STL-6303E C1 ccd camera (this is a serious camera!)
sbig remote guider (you could use your piggybacked apo as as a piggyback guider with this)

This is what I would get, the above equipment is pretty much state of the art at the moment

The guys above hinted at what I'm about to say here, please do not think that you can just plug all this stuff together and immediately get good images, its going to take some tweaking and effort to get it all working, but once you have it up and running you'll have a fantastic setup for deepsky and planetary imaging and viewing.

It has to be said that this grade of equipment will be severely handicapped by the light pollution in Dublin, so long as you know.

Dave L. on facebook , See my images in flickr
Chairman. Shannonside Astronomy Club (Limerick)

Carrying around my 20" obsession is going to kill me,
but what a way to go. :)
+ 12"LX200, MK67, Meade2045, 4"refractor

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18 years 6 months ago #28165 by cloudsail
Or... set aside 5000 Euro for a 12" LX-200, another 15,000 for a mount, eyepieces, filters, and a silo dome on a concrete utility shed. Put the rest in a brown envelope and find a minister with the authority to push through anti light pollution laws...

Sorry for the negativism, but if you'd like to see what happens to a 40" refractor in a beautifully designed building when light pollution of a city 50 miles away encroaches and make this tool all but useless:

www.saveyerkes.com

Maybe we can learn from what is happening to Yerkes. Don't let this observatory become a housing development and spa! Though I suppose that would be the thing to do these days...

Seriously, if you think it would be useful I have a contact who helped build this community observatory: users.wi.net/~rasastro/observatory.html And I met another man who converted a corn silo dome into an observatory dome for an LX-200.

There is nothing of moneyed value to be gained by the devotee to astronomy ... there is nothing he can sell ... Consequently the devotee of astronomy has as his only reward the satisfaction which comes to him in the glory of the work which he does and the results which he accomplishes.
... spoken by Charles Yerkes on the front steps of the observatory, when presenting Yerkes Observatory to the University of Chicago on October 21, 1897.

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18 years 6 months ago #28167 by albertw

The guys above hinted at what I'm about to say here, please do not think that you can just plug all this stuff together and immediately get good images, its going to take some tweaking and effort to get it all working, but once you have it up and running you'll have a fantastic setup for deepsky and planetary imaging and viewing.


Dave, is this tweaking something that would need to be done every night or are you referring more to gernerally gaining expertises with the equipment?

The observatory will need to have the capability for visual use, so sometimes the cameras etc. will be taken off and an eyepiece put in.

Consider this scenario. The scope is being used for visual use on Monday and wednesday night. Someone, who we can assume is familiar with the setup and has calibrated it for imaging before and knows the tweaking needed wants to use it on Tuesday night.

Would they be able to put the camera equipment back in place, test and calibrate it and start imaging again in a number of hours?

Or put another way, is the tweaking that you mention something that would take a number of nights to get right, even if you know exactly what you are doing and are familiar with the setup?

I'm trying to get a handle on the limitations that using the equipment for visual and research work puts on the project.

It has to be said that this grade of equipment will be severely handicapped by the light pollution in Dublin, so long as you know.


True. But hey the location is set, and I'm sure some of the people involved will be up for the challenge of getting the best images they can from light poluted South Dublin. Expect a young scientest project or two on deep sky imagaing in a light polluted enviroment!

Cheers,
~Al

Albert White MSc FRAS
Chairperson, International Dark Sky Association - Irish Section
www.darksky.ie/

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18 years 6 months ago #28168 by albertw

If you want to add any input as to what we should or shouldn't get. I would like to make sure that we can knock some 4th year or Young Scientist projects out of it.


Can I suggest one preparatory project that someone in there might like to take up next year.

Conduct a study of Dublin skyglow. It would be possible to pass the skyglow through a spectrometer to see what waveleghts create the greatest problem. I can guess the answers now, but I've never seen a good study of it.

This project would be trick primarilly because you are trying to get a spectra of a large faint 'cloud'. Some apparatus of mirrors to focus an amount of sky onto a slit would be required. Especially to pick up anything other than the sodium emission line. I've tried doing this before and can pick up the obvious orange spike, but I needed a brighter source to pick out more useful information.

You should be able to isolate several types of lights contributing to the pollution. They will probably be, low pressure sodium, high pressure sodium, mercury and halogen. These should stick out fairly obviously as peaks, which would lead you to conclude what the relative effects of streetlighting -v- secuity lighting is. There is also white light from regular 'hot wire' bulbs to contend with.

For one thing this would give you an idea of what wavelengths you will need to filter out in the observatory. At least it will help in the selection of any light pollution or contrast enhancing filters.

There is quite a bit of physics invovlved here just to do the project, but there is also some research. For example which wavelengths of light are not seen in the sky but are emitted? Some wavelenghts will be reflected more than others so for example if you shine a high pressure sodium lamp into a cloud and take the reflected spectra you won't get the emmitted spectra back. Can the results tell us anything about the particle or gas pollutants in the Dublin sky?

I'm waffling a bit but I think there is the bones of a good project here.

Cheers,
~Al

Albert White MSc FRAS
Chairperson, International Dark Sky Association - Irish Section
www.darksky.ie/

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