The GoTo Astronomy Laboratory Facility

GoTo 天文学实验室设施

• 批准号: 0536287
• 负责人: Joseph Pollock
• 金额: $ 7.3万
• 依托单位: Appalachian State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-07-15 至 2008-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0536287&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: GoTo; Astronomy; Laboratory; Facility

The development of personal computers, CCD imagers and more recently computer controlled, so called GoTo, telescopes has greatly expanded the types of observations, both qualitative and quantitative, that can be made by the typical undergraduate student. These powerful yet extremely user friendly devices now provide the opportunity for astronomy to match or even exceed the lab experiences in the other sciences. In addition to this newly developed hardware are many excellent astronomical image manipulation software packages that provide analytical data from these digital images. The University's GoTo Astronomy Lab facility consists of an indoor laboratory room equipped with 18 computer stations, each operated by a team of two students. The heart of the facility is the adjacent outdoor observing deck with 18 permanently mounted 10-inch telescopes, each equipped with an STV CCD camera. Each telescope is connected to a computer station to allow image downloading, but this also permits indoor telescope and camera control when outdoor conditions are too severe to be on the deck for extended periods. The CCD cameras are interfaced to the telescope by a permanently mounted VISTA (Visual Imaging and Spectroscopic Telescope Adapter) which incorporates a flip mirror to allow direct viewing as well as imaging. It also has an integrated diffraction grating/cylindrical lens system for spectroscopy of bright stars. These user friendly telescope systems allow a wide spectrum of outdoor laboratories, some traditional, but some of which were difficult or even impossible with previously available equipment. The intellectual merit of this project begins with the objectives to create a state-of-the-art introductory astronomical laboratory that utilizes and integrates the full potential of modern technologies, and to provide access to the educational astronomical community both the hardware designs and the laboratory materials for use in upgrading their own laboratory curricula. The facility provides 360 students per semester an opportunity to carry out investigations that seemed unrealistic until recently. Participation in these laboratories allows students to develop a deeper, first hand understanding of how scientific investigations are undertaken and how data are analyzed and evaluated. The broader impacts of this project outside the local course fall in two different areas. The success of this project and the resultant equipment designs and lab exercises should encourage more academic institutions to develop GoTo facilities to provide their introductory students a hands (and eyes) on experience operating their own local telescopes. In addition, the outdoor exercises can be easily adapted for use with different telescope/detector combinations that other users might already have. A facility such as this can also serve local schools and the community in general when it is not in use for its primary function. It can also provide an ideal setting for workshops attended by those wishing to create or upgrade their laboratory programs.

个人计算机、CCD成像仪和最近的计算机控制的、所谓的后藤望远镜的发展，极大地扩展了典型的大学生所能进行的定性和定量的观测类型。这些功能强大但用户非常友好的设备现在为天文学提供了匹配甚至超过其他科学实验室体验的机会。除了这些新开发的硬件之外，还有许多优秀的天文图像处理软件包，可以从这些数字图像中提供分析数据。该大学的后藤天文学实验室设施包括一个室内实验室，配备了18台计算机，每台由两名学生组成的团队操作。该设施的核心是邻近的室外观测台，有18个永久安装的10英寸望远镜，每个望远镜都配备了一个STV CCD相机。每个望远镜都连接到一个计算机站，以允许图像下载，但这也允许室内望远镜和相机控制时，户外条件太严峻，在甲板上长时间。CCD相机通过一个永久安装的VISTA（视觉成像和光谱望远镜适配器）与望远镜连接，该适配器包含一个翻转镜，可以直接观察和成像。 它还有一个集成的衍射光栅/柱面透镜系统，用于明亮恒星的光谱分析。这些用户友好的望远镜系统允许广泛的户外实验室，一些传统的，但其中一些是困难的，甚至不可能与以前可用的设备。该项目的智力价值首先在于建立一个最先进的入门天文学实验室，利用和整合现代技术的全部潜力，并向教育天文学界提供硬件设计和实验室材料，用于更新他们自己的实验室课程。该设施每学期为360名学生提供一个进行调查的机会，直到最近，这似乎是不现实的。在这些实验室的参与，让学生发展如何进行科学调查，以及如何分析和评估数据的更深入的，第一手的理解。该项目在当地课程之外的更广泛影响属于两个不同的领域。该项目的成功以及由此产生的设备设计和实验室练习应该会鼓励更多的学术机构开发后藤设施，为他们的入门学生提供操作本地望远镜的经验。此外，户外练习可以很容易地适应使用不同的望远镜/探测器组合，其他用户可能已经有。这样的设施在不用于其主要功能时，也可以为当地学校和一般社区服务。 它还可以为那些希望创建或升级实验室计划的人参加的研讨会提供理想的环境。