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Fraser Lewis Faulkes Telescope Project
Liverpool John Moores University The Open University
Linking Real Astronomy Research to the
Classroom
Robotic telescopes allow us to obtain images from distant good quality sites
There are ONLY 3 * 2-metre telescopes that do this for education (and only 1 person … !)
FT
LT
Tarantula
Nebula
M27
NGC 4038 and NGC 4039
The Antennae
FTN
Haleakala, Maui
10 Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
10
2m
2m 2 x 1m
3 x 1m 3 x 1m
1m
“Whole Earth Telescope”
24/7 observations
Long-term monitoring
Rapid response
Time critical observations
Education
FT initiatives: • Twinning schools • Themed Observing Days • Teacher Training (online and F2F) • School-based Support Centres • Down2Earth
Schools initiatives:
• After-school Astronomy clubs • GCSE Astronomy support
“Themed Observing Days”
Pro-Am-Schools collaborative projects - day, weeks or months Projects include: • Colour Imaging • “Lifecycle of Stars” • Asteroid Rotation • Tracking NEOs • X-ray systems in outburst • Compact galaxy groups
Asteroids, comets & NEOs
• FT observing programmes – asteroids and comets in space
• “Down 2 Earth” project – impacts and meteorites
http://education.down2earth.eu
Asteroid Rotation
• Requires collaboration
• Asteroid brightness measured to produce light curves
Aug.
2011
Exoplanet transits
CoRot 2b: David Hardy & Thomas Ham (Cardiff schools), July 2012
Open Clusters
• Colour images
• Produce colour-magnitude
(cf. Hertzsprung-Russell) diagrams
• Identify “unusual” stars (BVR + H alpha)
• Variable star searches (hours to years)
New variables
Patrick Gildersleeve (St. Johns, Cardiff)
Supernovae Portal
Co-ordinated by Poland
>40 targets in archive
29 schools (6 UK, 2 US, 2
Portugal, 2 Italy, 1
Germany, 1 China, 15
Poland)
24 teachers
31 guests (amateurs)
Faulkes Telescope Monitoring of GX 339-4
Optical/infrared – X-ray correlations
A nearby and ‘easy-to measure’
black hole !
Coming soon via Rosa @ NUCLIO
28 May 2015 Fraser Lewis - Usk AS 27
Thanks for listening
http://faulkes-telescope.com
http://resources.faulkes-telescope.com
http://education.down2earth.eu
http://www.golabz.eu/
http://schoolsobservatory.org.uk/
http://lcogt.net
Please come find me or
e-mail me your ideas
fraser.lewis@faulkes-
telescope.com
Inquiry-Based Science Education
Students ask questions, we provide tools and data, they provide answers themselves
NGC 6888 Crescent Nebula
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time/s
Lig
ht/%
FTS Siding Spring, Australia
Fastest Rotating Asteroid!
• FTS observations by British amateur astronomer
• Part of new collaborative project to survey properties
of small NEAs
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
International Education
• Belgium • Poland • Russia • Portugal • USA • Australia • France • Netherlands • Germany • Italy • Spain • India • Israel
• Image specific objects showing stars at different life stages
• Schools process images, create poster
Lifecycle of Stars
Birth Life Death
2-metre primary 2048 x 2048 CCD 21 filters (UV - near IR)
WWW access to research grade telescope networks
International collaboration
Infrastructure + Research + Education
Larger network plans:
0.4m mid 2014?, then 2-3 sites/year 1m early 2013, then 1-2 site/year
“We will always keep you in the dark”
LCOGT Plans
Funded FTP Sept. 05 – July 09
Additional core networks:
Education - 6 clusters of 0.4m (x 2-4)
Research - 6 clusters of 1.0m (x 2-3)
~$100 million programme
Eventually – free access globally
Wayne Rosing
Faulkes Telescopes
~£10M Dill Faulkes Educational Trust
~£1M STFC (UK research organisation)
~£0.6M Government (Education)
Overview (in ~ 10 minutes !)
• Robotic/remote-control telescopes
• Background to FT
• LCOGT – a global network
• Examples of FT projects
– Open clusters
– Asteroids, comets and NEOs
