Graduate Student Participation and CCD Procurement for the Original PolyOculus Array

研究生参与和原始 PolyOculus 阵列的 CCD 采购

• 批准号: 2205692
• 负责人: Stephen Eikenberry
• 金额: $ 17.34万
• 依托单位: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2205692&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Graduate; Student; Participation; CCD; Procurement

This project continues development of a new telescope configuration that is referred to as PolyOculus, which enables large telescope arrays at significantly lower cost. This allows smaller universities and colleges with limited budgets to engage in forefront research. The system uses small amateur telescopes to create robotic light collectors. These units are pointed at the same target and the light is fed into custom fiber optic cables. A photonic lantern is used to combine the light from the parallel fibers. Light can be further combined again with other similar units to make even bigger telescopes. The PolyOculus system would serve as a pathfinder for studies of targets identified by the Vera Rubin Observatory, to study the nature of Dark Energy and search for Earth-like planets. Follow-up spectroscopy is scientifically important for identifying the basic nature of new sources that are being discovered by time series observation of the night sky (e.g. supernovae, flare stars, tidal disruption events, or new classes of objects), for determining the key physical properties of these events(temperature, composition, radial velocity, outflows, etc.) and to follow the evolution of those properties with time. Traditional large spectroscopic facilities are expensive to construct. This project will develop a method for producing large-area-equivalent telescopes by using photonic technology to link multiple semi-autonomous, small, inexpensive, commercial-off-the-shelf telescopes. Crucially, this scalable design has construction costs which are substantially lower than equivalent traditional large-area telescopes. This project’s innovative array approach represents a new approach to obtaining spectroscopic follow-up for time-domain astronomy. Two graduate students will be engaged in the deployment and commissioning of the instrument at the Mount Laguna Observatory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目继续开发一种新的望远镜配置，称为PolyOculus，它使大型望远镜阵列的成本大大降低。这使得预算有限的小型大学和学院能够从事前沿研究。该系统使用小型业余望远镜制造机器人光收集器。这些装置指向同一个目标，光被送入定制的光纤电缆。光子灯用于将平行光纤发出的光组合在一起。光可以与其他类似的单位进一步结合，制成更大的望远镜。PolyOculus系统将作为维拉鲁宾天文台（Vera Rubin Observatory）确定的研究目标的探路者，研究暗能量的本质，寻找类地行星。后续光谱学在科学上是很重要的，它可以识别通过对夜空的时间序列观测发现的新光源的基本性质（例如超新星、耀斑、潮汐破坏事件或新类别的物体），确定这些事件的关键物理性质（温度、成分、径向速度、流出等），并跟踪这些性质随时间的演变。传统的大型光谱设备造价昂贵。该项目将开发一种生产大面积等效望远镜的方法，利用光子技术将多个半自主的、小型的、廉价的、现成的商业望远镜连接起来。至关重要的是，这种可扩展设计的建造成本大大低于同等的传统大面积望远镜。该项目的创新阵列方法代表了一种获得时域天文学光谱跟踪的新方法。两名研究生将在拉古纳山天文台进行仪器的部署和调试。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。