A Remote, Robotic Observatory for Undergraduate Astronomy Research and Education

天文学曾经只有专业天文学家才能使用，现在小型学院和业余天文学家正在建造和使用远程机器人天文台。在过去的十年里，可靠的、大规模生产的望远镜和机器人座架已经问世。为教育开发的成功的远程天文台包括诸如教育望远镜方案以及安吉洛州立大学开发的远程天文台等项目。偏远的天文台是本科教育的宝贵工具，特别是对于像里德这样的城市大学来说，它位于波特兰，天空轻度污染，经常多云。该项目支持位于波特兰地区以外的一个偏远的机器人天文台，用于本科生教育和研究以及公共宣传。天文台在派拉蒙ME机器人支架上安装了一台16英寸的RCOS望远镜，用于两个目的：Reed物理学本科生为观测天体物理学高级论文项目收集数据；以及学习入门和高级天文学课程的学生为实验室收集数据。对于实验室和演示，望远镜将通过互联网实时操作。如果不是实时操作，它将被编写成脚本，为学生指导的长期项目自动收集数据，可能包括对近地双星的光谱监测以及对近地小行星的探测和天体测量。

Astronomy (11) Once available only to professional astronomers, remote, robotic observatories are now being built and used by small colleges as well as by amateur astronomers. Reliable, mass-produced telescopes and robotic mounts have become available within the past ten years. Successful remote observatories developed for education include projects such as the Telescopes in Education program as well as the remote observatory developed by Angelo State University. A remote observatory is a valuable tool for undergraduate education, especially for urban colleges such as Reed, which is located in Portland under light-polluted and frequently-cloudy skies. The project supports a remote, robotic observatory located outside the Portland area and used for undergraduate education and research as well as public outreach. The observatory houses a 16-inch RCOS telescope on a Paramount ME robotic mount and is used for two purposes: by Reed physics undergraduates collecting data for senior thesis projects in observational astrophysics; and by students in introductory and advanced astronomy courses to collect data for labs. For labs and demonstrations, the telescope would be operated in real time over the internet. When not operated in real time, it would be scripted to automatically collect data for long-term, student-directed projects, possibly including spectroscopic monitoring of close binary stars and the detection and astrometry of near-earth asteroids.