Submitted by:
Erin O’Connor, Janet Van Der Veen, Ted Smith
Chris Bosso, Jennifer Zahm, and Philip Lubin
Physics, Remote Access Astronomy Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
v: (805) 893-8418
f: (805) 893-8498
e: erin@rot.ucsb.edu
Categories:
Education, K12; Education, Higher; Education, Continuing; Research, Academic; Research, government; Library; Museums, arts
Keywords:
Innovative or improved ways of doing things; More equitable access to technology or electronic information; Creation of new ideas and services; Local commitment to network-based activities; Leverage of public funding
Supporting Documentation (contact author for more information):
Software; Documentation; Imaging – scientific and general; CD/ROM
The Story:
REMOTE ACCESS ASTRONOMY PROJECT
CURRENT STATUS
MARCH 1993
GOALS AND SIGNIFICANCE:
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND:
RAAP is a computerized optical telescope and dial-in data distribution system that places high quality images and image processing techniques into computer workstations in junior and high school classrooms. This system provides a unique opportunity for secondary school students to utilize images from the Voyager, IRAS, COBE, Hubble Space Telescope and many other sources.
To help reverse the alarming decline in the number of American students choosing to major in engineering or physical sciences, UCSB is dedicated to making the traditional high school science curriculum more appealing. The goal of the Remote Access Astronomy Project is to entice students into a life-long pursuit of scientific discovery. Through the computerized bulletin board, either by telephone or network access, students and teachers in different schools can communicate with each other or with the University, change ideas and curricula, seek solutions to problems, and keep current with new information in physics, astronomy and other areas of science. Student are exposed to ideas and data that are not available in textbooks, in an interactive and challenging way. Students become empowered as researchers, and take on an active role in their own education. the motivation to attend class is increased, as students look forward to reading their computer “E- mail”, downloading image files, and viewing the results of the observing requests they submitted to the telescope. The visual and participatory nature of the system is a far stronger motivator for getting students interested in natural phenomena than 5 a textbook
METHODOLOGY:
The Remote Access Astronomy Project is a unique educational tool. This system is the result of five years of work and is now undergoing testing at numerous secondary schools in Southern California. We combine low cost but high- performance microcomputers with recently developed high-speed modem technology and image-compression algorithms, for a unique and effective method of data and curriculum distribution. This combination of high-quality data and low-cost technology allows the classroom teacher to present the traditional high school science curriculum in the context of recent developments in physics and astronomy. The classroom is no longer isolated, and the curriculum is no longer frozen and dependent on possibly outdated textbooks.
The system consists of a centralized image database, computer network, modems, and a remotely- controlled telescope and C (Charge Coupled Device – direct electronic imaging) camera in the foothills near CSB. The UCSB system is also linked with additional institutions that are providing data from other telescopes and satellites. Each remote school site has at east one image processing workstation and modem. Students at the high school’s workstation call the central system at UCSB and check for new electronic mail or leave messages. Images or entire curricula can be downloaded, or requests for targeted telescope observations can be uploaded. We began by installing a large database of planetary, stellar, extra-galactic and daily solar images. Many of those images were from Voyager, Magellan, IRAS, and the Hubble Space Telescope. More recently, we have expanded our database to include images from the atomic microscope efforts at UCSB, x-ray and magnetic resonance images, images from the Heck telescope, optical and rn images of the 1991 solar eclipse, COBE satellite sky surveys (public release), and daily satellite weather images, etc.–for a total of tens of thousands of images.
By making traditional curricula relevant to current topics which are of great interest to the general public, and by increasing the level of student initiative in class on a daily basis, we hope to increase enrollment higher-level science courses at the secondary level. In addition, we are finding from our experience at the junior high school level that he system is an excellent motivator for younger and non- traditional science students. For example, several elementary schools have shown interest in the project with students as young as ten years old. We anticipate RAAP will be useful in general science, chemistry, earth science, and biology classes, as well as physics an astronomy. Our database of images is being expanded to include atomic force microscope images of atoms and molecules (including DNA), MRI and x-r y images of the human body, images of the earth from the Earth Resources an Landsat satellites, as well as our regular planetary and astronomical images at visible, microwave, infrared and x-ray wavelengths. In addition to still images, movie sequences have been tried and can be useful for weather animation, solar rotation, and other comparisons.
The visual and participatory nature of the system is a stronger motivator for getting students interested in natural phenomena than a textbook Students will also be able to design their own research projects with remote access to our telescope, within the context of their general science, physics, or astronomy classes. Such access will help retain student interest in science and also attract a wider pool of high school students to the sciences. In addition, a computerized on-line electronic bulletin board provides a method of curriculum distribution that allows teachers from across the state and country to interact with each other and with university scientists on an ongoing basis.
FUTURE ASPIRATIONS:
Subject to available funding UCSB hopes to significantly expand the Remote Access Astronomy Project and demonstrate the potential of the model sufficiently so that it can be used for broad-based implementation, perhaps national basis. We will selectively increase the number of participating schools, upgrade each school’s level of involvement, develop and disseminate additional physics and other science curricula, produce a users’ manual and a catalogue of available programs, train teachers in the use of the system, publicize RAAP to encourage further expansion, and evaluate and refine the effectiveness of the project. Demographic and geographic composition will be an important consideration during the school selection process to ensure that RAAP serves a diverse student body and is demonstrated in a variety of school settings, including public, private and parochial schools.
The Remote Access Astronomy Project has been launched with seed funds from the University of California, the National Science Foundation’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation Teacher Enhancement Program.
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION:
The system is currently being used at a number of secondary schools, community colleges, and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
Initial tests in seven Southern California secondary schools have been enthusiastically received, primarily due to the very high quality (near photographic) images, and the natural video interface which seems familiar to most students who have grown up in the computer/video era.
The RAAP computerized bulletin board has been “on-line” since July, 1990, with over 5,500 calls. It is proving to be an extremely effective and natural means of information transfer. It is also helping to breakdown the sense of intellectual isolation amongst high school science teachers.
REMOTE OBSERVATION TELESCOPE:
An important component of the RAAP project is the Remote Observation Telescope (ROT). Students are often disappointed when they observe celestial objects with small telescopes used in astronomy labs. These objects appear only slightly better through small telescopes than with the naked eye, and look nothing like the spectacular photographs taken with large ground-based telescopes or the digital satellite images seen in astronomy text books and magazines. By mounting a very sensitive digital camera on the back of a 14 inch telescope, students can study stars, galaxies, planets, moons, nebulae, and other interesting items in a more meaningful way. Image quality can greatly be enhanced by automating the telescope and installing it at a remote site away from city lights above the smog and coastal haze.
Construction of such a remotely operated robotic telescope began with a team of undergraduate students and a staff technician working with Dr. Philip Lubin of the UCSB Physics Department. The telescope is to operate by taking observation requests from participating secondary schools in the RAAP program via the central BBS which will serve as communications link. Observation requests will be queued until that evening. The telescope will then check to see if weather conditions are suitable for an observation. Weather permitting the telescope will queue through the observation list–finding and tracking the objects, then storing the images to disk. These images will then be downloaded to the central BBS and disseminated to all secondary schools in the RAAP program. The telescope should be able to take over 100 high quality large format CCD images a night.
Such a system will allow high school students to design and implement their own research projects. The quality of images will be high enough that given the creativity of the research endeavor some real contributions to astrophysical research can be made. This is especially true of research projects which will require numerous observations over some given time period (such as variable star studies). In general, telescope time is hard to come by in the scientific community–yet students involved in the RAAP project should be able to get all the telescope time they need since the telescope can address the needs of many students in one evening remotely and robotically.
TECHNICAL OVERVIEW OF THE REMOTE OBSERVATION TELESCOPE:
The system is based on a 14 inch diameter Celestron telescope and a 386 computer. Upon completion and final testing, the telescope will be place atop Santa Ynez peak, on Vandenberg Air Force Base. Proper protection from the weather is provided by a large aluminum box. This enclosure can be opened and closed by the computer so that the telescope is only exposed to the outside environment during observations. To be fully independent, a weather station and infrared sky monitor have been incorporated into the system for real time measurement of the weather. The computer will check he weather both before opening as well as during normal operation. This will prevent the telescope from being exposed to rain, high winds, or other environmental extremes.
Control of the telescope’s slewing is obtained by a custom made micro- stepper system. The original over the counter controller for the telescope was replaced because of problems with tracking accuracy and repeatability. The attitude of the scope is thus changed by computer control of this microstepper control system.
Images are captured by a Photometrics CCD (Charged Coupled Device) camera. Images are then sent to the computer via an IEEE-GPIB(ous) for hard disk storage and later retrieval.
Various optical filters are available for use and can be shifted into place in front of the CCD camera via computer controlled servos. This allows for UBVRl spectral band isolation.
The telescope system (both telescope and CCD camera taken together) has a dark sensitivity of about 18th-20th magnitude. The unaided eye is hard pressed to detect objects of 5th or 6th magnitude.
Due to inherent system inaccuracies as well as atmospheric dependent refractive deviations, a second CCD camera has been installed. It’s camera will serve as a finding and tracking camera that will compensate for these induced errors as well as microstepper and telescope gearing errors which may result during tracking. This will allow for long exposures (long iteration times) since the tracker camera and computer will be working together.
Communication with the telescope will be maintained via a microwave link to a Local Area Network (LAN) in the UCSB Physics Department. >From the network standpoint, the telescope computer is simply another node on the system. Observations and images can thus be uploaded and downloaded with ease. The telescope computer can also be “captured” and operate remotely by any other computer on the network This allows for remote operation and maintenance of the system. Thus trouble shooting, reprogramming, or telescope monitoring can all be performed remotely without the need to send anyone to the site.
CURRENT STATUS OF REMOTE OBSERVATION TELESCOPE:
Most all of the hardware has been built and is being implemented. The telescope is currently set up on the roof of the Physics building a UCSB. Some of the tracker pattern recognition software and real time tracking software still needs to be written. The batch mode observation request queuing routines have been written but not tested. The telescope is fully operation ,though, in a real time manual mode which allows you to remotely search for objects using the tracking camera. Upon finding your target the large format CCD image can be taken. Currently, the telescope will slew to place the requested RA and DEC of the object to within the field of view of the finder CCD. With the aid of a star chart one can easily isolate the object of interest. This is analogous to conventional manual optical telescope observing.
For additional information contact:
Erin O’Connor
Physics, Remote Access Astronomy Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
v: (805) 893-8418
e: erin@rot.ucsb.edu
Ted Smith
Physics, Remote Access Astronomy Project
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
v: (805) 893-8418
e: ted@rot.ucsb.edu