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

1.0米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、进行大面积测量以及大口径或天基望远镜观测前后的极佳工具。与现场观测站相比，机器人网络的运营成本大大降低，覆盖广泛纵向基线的网络对于避免可变来源中的日循环和季节性循环计数模糊至关重要。德克萨斯州农工商业大学的马特·伍德博士打算加强东南天文研究协会(SARA)望远镜联盟的设施，该联盟已经包括基特峰国家天文台的0.9米反射器和塞罗托洛美洲天文台的0.6米望远镜，以及最近在加那利群岛拉帕尔马的罗克·德洛斯穆查霍斯天文台购买的1.0米雅各布斯·卡普廷望远镜(JKT)，以形成一个覆盖超过90度经度的3望远镜机器人望远镜网络。新的望远镜将配备一个改进的次镜，升级的望远镜驱动器和编码器，一个ccd测光相机，以及与SARA其他望远镜相同的穹顶控制/天气监测软件。即将启用的科学非常适合于新兴的时间域天文学领域：小行星、激变变星和其他类型的双星、活动星系核和伽马射线爆发事件，并包括已经成为联盟天文学家研究重点的主题。JKT的远程操作预计将使SARA能够为11名成员的联盟增加至少4名新成员，并将扩大确保成员教职员工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，在国家研究舞台上的代表性通常较低，但它们是科学研究的重要教学论坛，因为它们允许本科生和研究生使用联盟的设施来完成他们的论文和顶峰项目。能够在比东海岸早6小时的设施中进行远程观测也将提高SARA在美国开展公共推广活动的能力。NSF天文科学部通过参与重大研究仪器计划为原型光谱仪的开发和建造提供资金。

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.