First autonomous telescope at Wallace Observatory : impact and preliminary results

The construction and characterization of an autonomous telescope began in Fall 2014 at the MIT George R. Wallace, Jr. Astrophysical Observatory. An 11-inch Cassegrain Telescope was assembled in a 10-foot Technical Innovations ProDome. This telescope, the Small AUtonomous Robotic Optical Nightwatcher (SAURON), has the potential to autonomously collect photometric images. Data were taken on T-And0-15785, an eclipsing binary star, in order to test and characterize the system. The out-of-ecliptic R magnitude of T-AndO-15785 was found to be 13.487 ± 0.016. The magnitude changes for the primary and secondary eclipses were found to be 0.72 ± 0.036 and 0.62 ± 0.031 R magnitudes respectively. The telescope, SAURON, is currently able to locate targets and collect data robotically with an observer monitoring from afar.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Kosiarek, Molly (Molly R.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard Binzel and Michael Person.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114124

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/114124