Remote Astronomy
Bringing Mount Wilson to You

By Martin Ratcliffe

The program that made this dream come true is called Telescopes In Education (TIE). Founded in 1993 by the Mount Wilson Institute, this initiative encourages educational facilities across the country to use telescopes. Through the effort and support of the institute, and bolstered by donations from various individuals and companies, anyone with a home computer, modem, and proper software can command a 24-inch

reflector at Mount Wilson Observatory to point toward a celestial bject and grab a CCD image. I was among the first few to try out the system.

PREPARATIONS

As novel as it sounds, operating a telescope by remote control wasn't a totally new experience for me. At the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium and Observatory in Pittsburgh we have a 16 inch telescope with a 1,024-by-1,024 pixel CCD camera on the roof of the Carnegie Science Center that is fully operable from a control room two floors below. The difference, of course, is that instead of a telescope a couple of dozen feet over my head, the instrument is 4,000 kilometers away.

The remaining necessary ingredient is the software. You need something to select your target, something to control the CCD camera, and something to connect and control the Mount Wilson telescope.  Currently these capabilities are commercially available from only one source: Software Bisque's remote-astronomy Software package.

The first of its three components is TheSky, a desktop-planetarium program that displays the night sky on your monitor. The version included with the remote-astronomy software contains 45,000 stars and 10,000 deep-sky objects. Additional databases can be bought separately to bring this total up to an astounding 19 million objects. With TheSky you can design your observing session. Before you connect to the telescope, you can determine what objects are above the horizon and whether such things as the Moon will interfere.

The second software component is SkyPro. This sophisticated software package controls the ST-6 CCD camera (with a 375-by-242-pixel array) and includes an extensive selection of image processing tools. The final module is the Local Serial Port Controller (LSPC), which establishes the modem connection to the telescope or any other compatible instrument. (The LSPC command language for remote telescope control, created by Merlin Controls Corp., is available to other software developers. Thus additional software packages will surely come. I'm hoping for one for my Macintosh.)

The three components run simultaneously and are a dream to use. The LSPC performs quietly in the background, while TheSky allows you to locate any object above the horizon and instructs the telescope to center on it. The SkyPro CCD-camera controller captures the image, which can then be analyzed.

Reprinted from Sky & Telescope July '94

A continent away from the Mount Wilson telescope, the author controlled it from the Carnegie Science Cener in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Photgraph by James Hughes.

Once linked to Mount Wilson, a welcome screen credits all who helped with the project.

First light!  The author captured Betelgeuse through thin clouds over Mount Wilson.

Next, I connected to Mount Wilson using the LSPC software. It asked for the proper computer and modem configuration; the observatory's telephone number is supplied. I was greeted by a stylish and friendly screen welcoming me to Mount Wilson Observatory, perched 5,410 feet above Los Angeles, and crediting the collaborators in the project. A tingle went down my spine the first time I saw the welcome screen as I thought of all the famous observers who had trodden that mountain. Here in 1994 I was controlling a telescope a continent away with my simple PC.

I selected "Link" from TheSky's menu - now TheSky has become the pointing controls for the 24-inch reflector. A nice touch at this stage is that the screen autoutomatically switches to a totally red nightvision mode to preserve your dark adaptation. I could turn off the lights and pretend I really was in a control room atop Mount Wilson! The experience gave a new twist on virtual reality.

READY FOR A TEST DRIVE

I spent one evening becoming familiar with the software. TheSky's simple pulldown menus allow you to set your location, date, and time zone, and move around the sky. The screen is well organized, and icons (clickable "screen buttons") indicate the task they will perform. A large number of observing locations are already on file, including a setting for Mount Wilson.  After a few hours I was ready for my observing run on Mount Wilson. Of course, I would not have to travel far!

With M81 locked, I squeezed off a 10 second exposure. To get the most out of the chip, I attempted a 30-second exposure. However, the connection to the telescope broke for some reason. I had to reinitialize the link, but it took only a couple of minutes. After reconnecting, I took a 25-second exposure.

With such wonderful results, I excitedly continued my observing run. I had two more galaxies to capture: M82, less than a degree away from M81, and M65 in Leo. My 25-second exposure of M82 was long enough to record some of the faint outer reaches of the galaxy.

The dust lanes of spiral galaxy M65 are well resolved in this 25-second exposure.
 

With the images safely on my computer's hard disk, I terminated the link to the telescope in TheSky and exited that software. Then I terminated the link to the CCD camera, closed SkyPro, and disconnected the LSPC from Mount Wilson. Tremendously satisfied with the ease of use and the fabulous images I had obtained, I packed up for the night. Still in my mind were images of that famous mountaintop.

Reprinted from Sky & Telescope July '94

Ratcliffe's 25-Second exposure of M81 records Supernova 1993J (arrowed) nearly a year after its discovery.

BRIGHT FUTURE

I couldn't help but think that if this system had been available two years ago, I might have been lucky enough to get an early discovery of the supernova in M81. With such telescopes scattered across the country, many amateurs won't need to buy their own to make real scientific contributions. Simply buy a computer and suitable software, and some of the world's best telescopes will be at your fingertips. A new era of amateur astronomy is now within reach.

The TIE initiative is already planning improvements to the Mount Wilson telescope. A new 1,024-by-1,024 CCD camera is to be attached to the Cassegrain focus in time for the Comet ShoemakerLevy 9 impact into Jupiter's atmosphere in July. The ST-6 camera will be moved to a 10-inch guidescope donated by Meade Instruments. The 10inch will also take hydrogen-alpha pictures of the Sun and make them available daily on the Internet to schools and science centers across the country. Both telescopes will have filter wheels for multi spectral studies.

Ratcliffe is director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium and Observatory in Pittsburgh. He writes the monthly Night Sky column for Britain's Astronomy Now magazine.