COLDEX WP4 Astronomic Scenarios UPM & CHILE

Observatorio Cerro Calán REMOTE SCENARIOS Observatorio Cerro Calán Santiago de Chile South hemisphere Facultad Informática UPM - Madrid North hemisphere

TELESCOPES Goto 45 CM Cassegrain Meade 25 CM LX-200

ARCHITECTURE Madrid Motorized dome Home-Dome

ARCHITECTURE Santiago CATS Server CCD Server CAMERA SBIG ST-8 CATS Client Developed by ourselfs TELESCOPE Goto 45 CM Cassegrain

EXPERIMENTS (Challenges) • Moon cartography and crater measurement • Observation of solar planets • Observation of Messier objects http://www.seds.org/messier/ • Asteroids localization http://www.solarviews.com/eng/asteroid.htm • Sunspot measurement

EXP. 4: ASTEROIDS • Learning goal: Discover new asteroids • Places: Santiago & Madrid • Actions: - Aiming to a specific area of an asteroids belt - Taking pairs of images - Processing images - Calculate the asteroids trajectory - Report to the asteroids data base

How to detect asteroids (Yebes -SPAIN, June 9th 2003) 1 2 2º Two stars are identified in both images 1º Two images are taken from the same part of the sky at different times 3º The asteroid can easily be seen by processing the two images (next slide)

EXP. 5: SUNSPOTS • Learning goal: Counting sunspots and measuring their size • Places: Santiago & Madrid • Actions: - Aiming to a specific area of the sun - Taking R-G-B images - Processing images - Counting spots and measuring their size

In one week, the size of some spots changes dramatically

• The number and size of sunspots vary with time

Pedagogic Goals Authentic Activities Imitation of real professional's work System provides scaffolding Collaboration is not artificially imposed Challenge based learning

Learning Sceanrio 4: Asteroids Astronomy clubs at schools Challenge: discover new asteroids They propose an observation program which is delivered to the telescope operators in an appropiate language and format Photographs are taken by the staff and provided to the students. They are also stored in a public repository (following LOR structures) Students process the data with appropiate tools They publish their results in a repository

Learning Sceanrio 5: Sunspots Challenge: analyse the behaviour and size of the sunspots The telescope operators takes photographs of the sun every 3-4 days Photographs are stored in a repository from which students can download them They measure and describe their movement, again publishing their results in a repository They can use hystorical material stored in the repository They may use the repository material for other tasks

The Required Tools A system for gathering and processing observation requirements Workflow processing tool including image processing modules Repository of photographs Repository of published works Repository of other didactical material An "Astronomical Encyclopaedia“ Including a sky visualizing simulation tool LOR

Image processing module • Image processing must be performed on the client side • TITERE tool will be integrated in COOLMODES

Sky visualization tool

Value Added We propose an integrated view of astronomical observation processed in a collaborative way There is no requirement of full remote, nor exclusive operation of the telescope Allows sharing of the data generated among all groups Provides a structure for storing data generated, which will facilitate its later retrieval and use in different learning scenarios Provides an interoperative formal language to specify observation requirements that is simple enough for non- professionals but requires the understanding of some astronomical concepts Provides tools for establishing and processing the required workflow Processing images Gaining access to relevant data