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The Faulkes Telescope ProjectDeep Impact & Bioastronomy
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii
K. Meech
Faulkes Telescope Project
• Educational Partnership:– Educational Trust of Great Britain (UK)
– Institute for Astronomy (HI)
• Purpose: Astronomy Outreach• Location:
– Haleakala, Maui Hawaii
– Australia
• Operations– Remote control from the UK & Hawaii
– Observe from classrooms
– Queue Scheduled
– 30% of evenings for Hawaii
The Faulkes Telescope
• Professional Telescope– 2-m f/10 primary – alt/azimuth– 12 arc min FOV– Guider to 17th mag
• Optical Detector– EEV CCD42-20 CCD: 2048x2048
pixels (0.135”)– 4.6 x 4.6’ FOV– Filters: Sloan u', g', r', i', z', B, V,
ND
• Future instruments:– Near IR imager– Spectrograph
Project StatusMOU 6/26/99
Site blessing 11/02/01
Phase 1 construction – 3/2002
Enclosure – Scotland
• Ship: 7/02
• Install 11/22/02
Telescope ship 8/02
Telescope
• Install 1/23/03
• Electronics 7/03
• First light 8/03
• Operations Oct 04
Faulkes Education Program• TOPS Education Outreach Program – S’03 (NSF/NASA)
– Take “master teachers”
– Train for remote observing
– Simulate the Faulkes Experience• 3 days learning to plan observations
• 1 day planning, learn web interface
• Receive data, learn image processing
• 1 weekend to analyze data and formulate a report
• Astrobiology & Deep Impact
What can students do?• Young Variables: star form• Kuiper Belt Studies
– Colors & physical study
– Recovery orbits
• Comet Studies– Rotation
– Space mission support
– NEO Characterization
What can students do?
• Extrasolar Planet Transits• Synoptic Studies of Jupiter
– Rotation
• Synoptic Studies of Mars– Dust storms
Courtesy of D. Charbonneau, CaltechCourtesy of D. Charbonneau, Caltech
Project Goals
• Develop a teacher mentor network of teachers
• Astronomer-teacher liasons
• Provide software
• Develop an image data archive
• Increase astronomy content in classrooms– Curriculum materials
– Science fair participation