1. The Faulkes Telescopes: A Robotic Telescope Network for School Science Students Dr David Frew Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University Sydney

2. The Faulkes Telescopes 2-metre primary mirrors

3. 3 The $30M Faulkes Telescopes are the world's largest telescopes built primarily for science education. One is located in Hawaii, the other in Australia. Originally funded by Dill Faulkes, now owned by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. These robotic telescopes are controlled via the internet. Students can use archival data or take ownership of real research projects with help from their teachers and support staff. Some background on the Telescopes…

4. Maui, Hawaii FT (North) Coonabarabran, NSW FT (South) The Faulkes Telescopes – locations

5. Siding Spring Observatory, north-western NSW Site of Faulkes Telescope South

6. Colour Images taken with the Faulkes Telescopes

7. Motivating students to study science and technology 4/6/09FT Kick-off meeting7 Inherent fascination of astronomy and space Excitement of real discoveries Fabulous images Cutting-edge multi-million dollar technology Collaboration with real scientists Genuine scientific investigations Relevant to syllabus Why use the FTs?

8. 8 Mechanics Materials Robotics Electronics Mathematics Computing Technology Not just astronomy! Communications And links with... Art..... Technical English Optics Image processing Mechanics History Geography Geology

9. 9 Examples of Faulkes Projects Variable stars Monitoring variation in brightness Estimating sizes of eclipsing binary stars Star Clusters Observing stars in 3 wavebands to determine temperature and luminosity Estimate age of cluster Planetary Nebulae Imaging, measuring & classifying Identification of central stars Galaxies Imaging, measuring & classifying

10. FT Projects are especially relevant to… Year 7 - 10 NSW Science Syllabus Year 11 Physics – The Cosmic Engine Year 12 Physics – Space (Core) and Astrophysics (Option) 10

11. Syllabus Mapping… Contents of the universe – Kepler’s Laws and Gravity –Asteroids –Masses of planets (Jupiter, Saturn) – Star Clusters and Stellar Evolution –Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram –Planetary Nebulae – Galaxies – The Big Bang (galaxy red-shifts, quasars) Astronomical Methods – Instrumentation –Photometry (light curves of asteroids, variable stars, supernovae) –Spectroscopy

12. Jupiter (FT image) Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/jupiter

13. Trifid nebula (M 20) Emission nebula Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/m20

14. Messier 13 (Globular cluster) Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/m31

15. NGC 3242 (Ghost of Jupiter) NGC 6543 (planetary nebula) Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/ngc-6543

16. NGC 3938 (Spiral Galaxy) Credit: http://lcogt.net/en/image/space/ngc3938

17. Student comments from our ASISTM Pilot Project 2006-08 “Everybody found this project awesome and I can’t wait to do more” “It was so interesting and not that hard to do” “I can’t believe I have contributed to real life science” 17

21. Further Information Our Homepage at Macquarie (Space To Grow Research Project): www.astronomy.mq.edu.au/space2grow/ DEST-funded Pilot Study (Deep Space in the Classroom): www.astronomy.mq.edu.au/deepspace/ Faulkes Telescope Homepage: http://faulkes-telescope.com/ Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network: http://lcogt.net/