european small and medium sized telescopes
DESCRIPTION
European small and medium sized telescopes. Paul Murdin Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council. European astronomical telescopes. Telescopes in or (at least partly) for Europe: Astronomical Almanac 1981-84 Sky and Telescope August 2000 (d > 2.3m) - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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European small and medium sized telescopes
Paul Murdin
Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council
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European astronomical telescopes
Telescopes in or (at least partly) for Europe: Astronomical Almanac 1981-84 Sky and Telescope August 2000 (d > 2.3m) SEDS http://www.seds.org/billa/bigeyes.htm
FutureFrame http://www.futureframe.de/astro/instr/emopt.htm
… plus ad hoc updates
There is not an comprehensive list A job for Opticon ?
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Telescope locations Remote from European city areas, requiring boat
or plane trip On a mountain location but within, say, two
hours' drive from a European city Within an easy hour's journey from a European
city
Robotic or remotely operated telescopes starting to emerge
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European telescopes
0
5
10
15
20
25
1-1.
49
2-2.
49
3-3.
49
4-4.
49
5-5.
99
7-7.
99
9-9.
99
Aperture (m)
Nu
mb
er Near city
Mountain
Remote mountain
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European telescopes
There are natural groupings in the distributions
There is a clear break at 5m aperture There are groups as follows
– 3.5 - 4.2 m (9 telescopes)
– 2.2 - 2.64 m (7)
– 1.2 - 2.0 m (18)
– ~1 metre (15+?)
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Scope of Opticon
The scope of the Opticon WG on SMTs makes almost consistent sense
Telescopes at national, bilateral or international observatories with a European component
Telescopes between ~1m and 5m Telescopes at mountain top observatory sites
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Training for astronomical research Existing educational budgets would tend to support the more
convenient telescopes There are many conveniently located 1 m telescopes but
much of Europe has no convenient access even to 1 m telescopes
The 2, 2.5 or 4 metre telescopes tend to be remote or very remote
Such telescopes could be exploited for the transition between undergraduate training (1m class) and professional research (4m)
i.e. postgraduate training
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European confidence-building
There is a human motivation to study astronomy It is important to build confidence in science in
Europe Astronomy is an international, scientific venture Astronomy is a motivational inspiration for
developing economies
Enlarge access to the high status observatories
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Use of Small-Medium Telescopes General purposes Support of 8 metre class telescopes Dedicated programmes, e.g.
variable star monitoring (e.g. machos) extra-solar planet, SN or NEO searches surveys (e.g. to feed from/to 8 m telescopes or satellites)
Education and training Postgraduate education and pilot projects Enlarge astronomical capability in the developing European academic
communities
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Telescope groupings
Size is not the only relevant parameter, but.. ..the groupings could form an organisational
basis for European coordination On a voluntary basis (of course)
group telescopes of similar size and similar purpose trade telescope time within a group coordinate instrument availability
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A grouping
Both hemispheres (N & S) Bright/dark use at each telescope Common instruments (camera,
spectrograph) rationally distributed Rare instruments not duplicated Decide the training role (if any)
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Access within a group
Possibly could move to a common time allocation process..
..but could simply liberalise existing procedures
Establish a quota of time (e.g. 20%) for freer access to astronomers outside the existing arrangements?
..or let the quota establish itself?
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Trading time Within a group of similar sized telescopes the unit could be
simply the night (dark or bright?) Obtain observing time by merit but pay money for it under
an access programmes &/or Keep account of time swapped within the group and draw
accounts in retrospect After a period, perhaps take ‘special measures’ to redress
any imbalance
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Conclusions
I have done no more than offer some thoughts on the topics we need to address..
..and tried to bring together some of the directions in which we could go
There is an ‘existence proof’ of some of the solutions
We need to address these issues practically in this Opticon working group