Faulkes Telescope Observations
NEOs and Comet C/2012 C1 (McNaught)
Comet C/2012 C1 (McNaught) on 2012 February 10th. Images obtained using
the Faulkes Telescope South, operated by Las Cumbres Observatory.
As four lower sixth students studying a range of different subjects,
attending a week of work experience at Armagh Observatory from 6th - 10th
February 2012 was an option attractive to us all. Although, as expected our
first day when we were meeting each other for the first time there were
undoubtedly nerves and fears about the week ahead. Fortunately, the staff at
the observatory were hugely welcoming and immediately put us to ease. We were
to be supervised by David Asher, an astronomer working at the observatory
long-term, who spoke to us about one of his specialised areas - near earth
objects (NEOs). We were informed of our plans for the week by David, who told
us we were to be working with the Faulkes Telescope in Australia and
Hawaii. The
Faulkes Telescope
Project and
Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
Network had kindly given us the opportunity to use these telescopes and
the observatory had booked us four sessions of controlling the telescope in
order for us to make some observations on NEOs. On our first day we have one
of these sessions but unfortunately the weather was not co-operating with our
plans for research and so, as the telescope was not operating, we were forced
to wait until our next opportunity, which was on the Thursday. Until then, we
were instructed how to use a number of the programs used in the day to day
work at the observatory, this was very interesting as we were collectively
learning from scratch having never before used the programs such as
'Gaia'
and The Faulkes Telescope before. We planned the objects that we were to
attempt to observe at our next session and this involved using the
Minor Planet Centre
website in order to locate the moving objects we wanted to see. We
recorded their position in the sky and calculated the exposure time needed to
see the object we wanted. While waiting on our next session we got to work
creating a user guide for the Faulkes Telescope with step-by-step
instructions on the programmes we had used. We spent much of our day doing
this as a lot of work was needed to improve the original guide and make it as
clear as possible but we had a number of other things to keep us occupied
during our visit. For example there was a guest speaker, Rob Izzard, at the
observatory and he gave two talks, one on the quality of written
communication from his students at Bonn University and another on the
'mischievous' J-stars. We thoroughly enjoyed these talks and found them
extremely educational, especially the latter, despite being much less learned
than the other people in the room. On Thursday we waited in anticipation for
our second session on the Faulkes Telescope but unfortunately we were once
again unable to use it due to weather conditions. So once again we located
more objects to observe and set them up ready for our two sessions scheduled
for our last day. Just before our first observing session on Friday, we were
given a tour of the observatory building and its telescopes, by John
McFarland. We all found this thoroughly enjoyable and interesting as some of
the telescopes were over one hundred years old and still operational. In our
final two sessions we managed to observe for the first time and received
several pictures of the objects we were trying to look at, including an
object from the Minor Planet Centre's
confirmation page which turned out to be the recently discovered comet
C/2012 C1 (McNaught). We were extremely successful and happy with our
results and findings from these sessions as we were to eventually send off
the data we discovered to the Minor Planet Centre in the hope it would be
interesting to them also and provide them with some useful information. We
were all conclusively very happy with our time at the Armagh Observatory and
it has been exponentially beneficial in helping us decide on future career
paths and life choices. We would like to thank all the staff for being so
hospitable and especially David for teaching us so much.
By Michael Bell, Ben Hounsell, Paula Keenan and Helen McParland
2012 February 10th
More astronomical projects with the Faulkes Telescopes
Last Revised: 2012 February 29th
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