Telescope Projects
Most of the information below can be found on the wiki for this project
A list of useful contacts (password protected).
The optical observatory equipment now consists of a rotatable dome, an optical telescope on a computer controlled mount along with a camera and filter set. The full list can be seen here.
Test data is available, please ask the project supervisors.
- Recap first year astronomical techniques notes
- Privett CCD astronomy book
- Observational Astronomy - Birney, chapters 7, 9 and 10
- To Measure the Sky - Chromey, chapters 8, 9, 10, 11
- Meade, camera, and CCDOps manuals
There is page of IDL usage examples here.
This is Mask that goes on the front of the telescope, which, when
pointed at a bright star generates a pattern similar to the one
below. When the telescope is in focus, all three patterns coincide,
when the telescope is out of focus, separate interference patterns are
seen, the lines do not cross in the same place.
This is how the image looks when the telescope is focussed -
unfocussed image coming soon!
We have purchased a Bahaninov mask to fit the Meade telescope, and
there also some home-made ones in the observatory.
Deadman from
'Deadman's
handle' is the software we use to ensure that working in the
observatory is as safe as possible.
The latest version of deadman can be found in http://andromeda.star.bris.ac.uk/deadman/deadman.jar
Create a file called deadman.props containing the email addresses you
have been given in the following format:
emails=super visor1 <email1@example.com>,super visor2 <email2@example.com>, super visor3 <email3@example.com>
and save it to the same place as your deadman.jar file and the email addresses
will be pre-loaded when you start deadman.
The Hoffleit
and Warren 5th revised edition of the Bright Star Catalogue is
available as a plain text file with notes suitable for reading into the topcat program.
Adventures in Deep Space
For remote access purposes, the observatory windows telescope control PC is called
it075291.users.bris.ac.uk (aka dome-pc.phy.bris.ac.uk).
How to get a g' and r' star catalogue from topcat is here.
Previous project reports can be seen here. Make sure you know the username and password.
Astronomical observations: a guide for allied researchers by P. Barmby.
High Precision Calibration Pairs for Northern Lucky Imaging by Matthew B. James et al
Rhys Morris
Last modified: Monday, 10 February 2025
The Equipment