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Дата изменения: Tue May 29 20:16:31 2001 Дата индексирования: Tue Oct 2 03:57:38 2012 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: cygnus loop |
There have been several attempts at using astronomical data in the classroom, in general within the framework of physics, mathematics, and/or astronomy courses. Using directly a telescope in the college backyard has many advantages, mainly that children themselves practice astronomy with a telescope. However, several problems may arise:
To that purpose, the Hands-On Universe program (Pennypaker et al. 1998; Boër et al. 2001) has been initiated to use astronomical data within the classroom. Telescope time is exchanged within the HOU network, in order to enable the use various telescopes over the world. Most of them may be remotely controlled, allowing them to be used at night.
The prime objective of the Télescope à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires (TAROT; Boër et al. 1999; Boër et al. 2000; http://tarot.cesr.fr), is the real time observation of cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts (hereafter GRBs). TAROT is a 25cm telescope, with a full autonomous control system, and able to point to any location over the sky within 1-2 seconds. Figure 1 displays the functional diagram of TAROT. In normal operations, the MAJORDOME (Bringer et al. 2000) computes the schedule and sends observation requests to the Telescope Control System, which takes care of the various housekeeping, points the telescope, and activates the CCD Camera. As soon as the data are taken, they are pre-processed, with dark, bias, and flat-field subtraction, cosmic ray removal, astrometric reduction, and a source list is built. The requests for observations are now sent via the web. Should a GRB alert occur (from the HETE-2 satellite), the present observation is interrupted, and the telescope slews immediately to the position of the GRB source.
The interfaces with the users, beside the ``alert'' connection with the GCN, are as follows:
We tested the various TAROT user interfaces at several public demonstrations. They proved to be very reliable. During the day, the presence of a webcam enables the user to see the immediate reaction of an instrument located at several hundreds or thousands kilometers from him. At night, images are available through the web within one or two minutes, on a page which includes the image in JPEG format, and the FITS header. Optionally, the sources from the USNO A2.0 catalog can be superimposed on the image (Thiébaut & Boër 2001), an asteroid chart can be requested, and the DSS can be extracted using a preformatted SKYVIEW query.
Since the prime goal of TAROT is doing science, we still prefer that users from schools either use frames from the scientific program (including frames acquired during the last night), or send requests to the batch interface, reserving the direct remote interface for demonstration purposes during the day or at night. We plan also to enhance this interface par allowing the MAJORDOME to schedule in advance the blocks of nights allowed for a use in direct access mode.
We found also that what seems evident to the astronomer has to be explained to general audiences, e.g., phenomena like saturation of frames, angles expressed in hours, and that a telescope located in the northern hemisphere has some difficulties to look at e.g., the Magellanic Clouds (this has also to be explained to several astronomers), or that the accessible sources in the sky vary from winter to summer. To cope with these last points, we plan to have a more interactive and pedagogical interface. In any case, this exercise of porting a system devoted to a somewhat specialized audience to the general public proved to be a very interesting and rewarding adventure for the TAROT team.
The TAROT program is funded by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (CNRS/INSU).
Boër, M., et al. 1999, A&AS, 138, 579
Boër, M., et al. 2000, in ASP Conf. Ser., Vol. 216, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems IX, ed. N. Manset, C. Veillet, & D. Crabtree (San Francisco: ASP), 115
Boër, M., et al. 2001, this volume, 103
Bringer, M., et al. 2000, Experimental Astrophysics, submitted
Pennypaker, C., et al. 1998, in Proceedings of the Misato International Symposium on Astronomical Education with the Internet, ed. M. Okyudo, T. Ebisuzaki, & M. Nakayama (Tokyo: Universal Academic Press, Inc), 45
Thiebaut, C. & Boër, M. 2001, this volume, 388