The Faulkes Telescopes:  A Robotic Telescope Network for

School Science Students

Dr David FrewDepartment of Physics,

Faculty of Science, Macquarie University

Sydney

The Faulkes Telescopes

2-metre primary mirrors

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• The $30M Faulkes Telescopes are the world's largest telescopes built primarily for science education.

• One is located in Hawaii, the other in Australia.

• Originally funded by Dill Faulkes, now owned by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.

• These robotic telescopes are controlled via the internet.

• Students can use archival data or take ownership of real research projects with help from their teachers and support staff.

Some background on the Telescopes…

Maui, Hawaii

FT (North)

Coonabarabran, NSW

FT (South)

The Faulkes Telescopes – locations

Siding Spring Observatory, north-western NSW

Site of Faulkes Telescope South

Colour Imagestaken with the Faulkes Telescopes

Motivating students to study science and technology

4/6/09FT Kick-off meeting 7

Inherent fascination of astronomy and space

Excitement of real discoveries

Fabulous images

Cutting-edge multi-million dollar technology

Collaboration with real scientists

Genuine scientific investigations

Relevant to syllabus

Why use the FTs?

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Mechanics

Materials

Robotics

Electronics

Mathematics

Computing

Technology

Not just astronomy!Communications

And links with . . .

Art . . . . .

Technical English

Optics

Image processing

Mechanics

History

Geography

Geology

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Examples of Faulkes Projects

Variable stars

• Monitoring variation in brightness

• Estimating sizes of eclipsing binary stars

Star Clusters

• Observing stars in 3 wavebands to determine temperature and luminosity

• Estimate age of cluster

Planetary Nebulae

• Imaging, measuring & classifying

• Identification of central starsGalaxies

• Imaging, measuring & classifying

FT Projects are especially relevant to…

• Year 7 - 10 NSW Science Syllabus

• Year 11 Physics – The Cosmic Engine

• Year 12 Physics – Space (Core) and Astrophysics (Option)

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Syllabus Mapping…

Contents of the universe– Kepler’s Laws and Gravity

– Asteroids

– Masses of planets (Jupiter, Saturn)

– Star Clusters and Stellar Evolution– Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram

– Planetary Nebulae

– Galaxies

– The Big Bang (galaxy red-shifts, quasars)

Astronomical Methods

– Instrumentation– Photometry (light curves of asteroids, variable stars,

supernovae)

– Spectroscopy

Jupiter (FT image)

Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/jupiter

Trifid nebula (M 20)Emission nebula

Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/m20

Messier 13 (Globular cluster)

Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/m31

NGC 3242 (Ghost of Jupiter)NGC 6543 (planetary

nebula)

Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/ngc-6543

NGC 3938 (Spiral Galaxy)

Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/ngc3938

Student comments from our ASISTM Pilot Project 2006-08

• “Everybody found this project awesome and I can’t wait to do more”

• “It was so interesting and not that hard to do”

• “I can’t believe I have contributed to real life science”

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Further Information

Our Homepage at Macquarie (Space To Grow Research Project):

www.astronomy.mq.edu.au/space2grow/

DEST-funded Pilot Study (Deep Space in the Classroom):www.astronomy.mq.edu.au/deepspace/

Faulkes Telescope Homepage:http://faulkes-telescope.com/

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network:http://lcogt.net/