MRI Consortium: Acquisition of Remote Observing Instrumentation for the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Jacobus Kapteyn 1.0m Telescope

1.0 m级望远镜的宽视场和调度灵活性使其成为监测周期性变化和瞬变物体，进行大面积调查以及大口径或天基望远镜前后观测的绝佳工具。与现场观测站相比，机器人网络的运营成本大大降低，并且覆盖较宽纵向基线的网络对于避免不同来源的日和季节周期计数含糊性至关重要。德克萨斯a&m大学商学院的马特·伍德博士打算用最近在加那利群岛拉帕尔马Roque de los Muchachos天文台获得的1.0米雅各布斯·卡普廷望远镜（JKT），来扩大由东南天文研究协会（SARA）望远镜财团运营的设施，该财团已经包括基特峰国家天文台的0.9米反射镜和塞罗·托洛洛美洲天文台的0.6米望远镜。形成覆盖90度以上经度的3台望远镜机器人望远镜网。新的望远镜将配备改进的二次反射镜，升级的望远镜驱动器和编码器，CCD测光相机，以及与其他SARA望远镜使用的相同的圆顶控制/天气监测软件。即将启用的科学非常适合时域天文学的新兴领域：小行星，灾难性变量和其他类型的双星，活动星系核和伽马射线暴事件，并且包括已经成为天文学家联盟研究重点的主题。JKT的远程操作预计将允许SARA在11名成员的基础上增加至少4名新成员，并将扩展确保成员教师和学生能够使用多功能，有能力的观测设施的理念。这些机构的天文学和物理系相对较小，在国家研究领域的代表性通常不足，但它们是重要的科学研究指导论坛，因为它们允许本科生和研究生使用联合设施来完成他们的论文和顶点项目。能够在东海岸前6小时的设施上进行远程观测，也将提高SARA在美国进行公共宣传活动的能力。该原型光谱仪的开发和建造资金由美国国家科学基金会天文科学部通过其参与主要研究仪器计划提供。

The wide fields-of-view and scheduling flexibility of 1.0-m class telescopes make them excellent tools for monitoring periodically-variable and transient objects, carrying out large area surveys, and pre- or post-observations for large aperture or space-based telescopes. Operating costs are significantly reduced for robotic networks compared with on-site observing stations, and networks that cover a wide longitudinal baseline are essential for avoiding diurnal and seasonal cycle count ambiguities in variable sources. Dr. Matt Wood, Texas A&M University-Commerce, intends to augment the facilities operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) telescope consortium, which already include the 0.9-m reflector at Kitt Peak National Observatory and the 0.6-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, with the recently-acquired 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT) at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, Canary Islands, to form a 3-telescope robotic telescope network covering more than 90 degrees of longitude. The new telescope will be outfitted with an improved secondary mirror, upgraded telescope drives and encoders, a CCD photometric camera, and the same dome control/weather monitoring software that is used on the other SARA telescopes. The science to be enabled is well-suited to the emerging field of time-domain astronomy: asteroids, cataclysmic variables and other types of binary stars, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray burst events, and includes topics that are already research foci for consortium astronomers.The remote operation of the JKT is expected to allow SARA to add a minimum of 4 new members to the 11-member consortium, and will extend the philosophy of ensuring that member faculty and students have access to versatile, capable observational facilities. These institutions, with relatively small departments of astronomy and physics, are typically under-represented in the national research arena, but are important instructional forums for scientific research because they allow undergraduate and graduate students to carry out their thesis and capstone projects using consortium facilities. Being able to remotely observe at a facility 6 hours ahead of the eastern seaboard will also improve SARA's ability to perform public outreach events in the U.S. Funding for development and construction of the prototype spectrograph is being provided by NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences through its participation in the Major Research Instrumentation program.