A Comparison of UK Robotic Telescopes for School Use

This is a comparison done by the Bradford Robotic Telescope Group and it assumes that the major objective of the telescopes is to support the teaching of the English National Curriculum. That is clearly not the major objective for all the telescopes but it is ours and this comparison is focussed on the teaching of the National Curriculum key stages 2, 3 and 4. We hope that it will be useful for many other curricula since the basics of astronomy are the same. Its lesser objectives are to enthuse young people with what science has to offer and encourage them to continue beyond their GCSEs.

There are three robotic telescope projects in the UK, which are generally accessible to all schools in the UK.

The Bradford Robotic Telescope
The Faulkes Telescope Project
The National Schools Observatory / The Liverpool Telescope

These will be referred to as BRT, FT and NSO/LT.

Observing Modes

Robotic telescopes can be operated in two ways:

• Direct Mode: remote control with the user directly controlling the telescope using a web cam
• Service Mode: where the user requests and observation, which is taken by the telescope and returned at a later date. Often called queue-scheduling.

In Direct Mode, one person has control of the telescope, although others can watch the system operating. The observer receives the image as soon as the telescope has made the observation.

In Service Mode, each person adds their request to the "input pool". The queue-scheduling computer system then sorts and grades the requests. It aggregates similar requests and creates an observing schedule that it passes to the telescope system. When the observation has been made, the user who made the request is sent an email giving details of the location of the image file.

The FT works in Direct Mode whereas the BRT and NSO/LT work in Service Mode.

Time Available and Costs

BRT: No fee to join. No fee for observations. Funded by PPARC, Nuffield Foundation, The Royal Society and others.

FT Recently became free to UK schools (was £160 pa to join). Registration gives 3 x ½ hour observing sessions (about 21 minutes observing available in each session allowing for the typing of commands and the slewing time of the telescope). Additional time is by negotiation. Astronomical Societies may register free but ½ hours sessions cost £50 each. The telescope was funded by the Dill Faulkes Trust who has now sold the telescope side to Wayne Rossing of Google fame who wants to expand the idea to a global service with many robotic telescopes.

NSO/LT: £50 pa to join. No fee for observations. Funded by Liverpool John Moores University and PPARC.

Apertures, Cameras and Fields of View

1. BRT Location: Tenerife one of the Canary Islands
   1. Main aperture 0.365 m with
   2. Galaxy Camera (0.4 degrees)
   3. Constellation Camera (40 degrees),
   4. Cluster Camera (3 degrees)
2. FTP Location: Hawaii & Australia:
1. Two telescopes each with Main aperture 2 metres
2. Telescope Camera (0.08 degrees)
3. NSO/LT Location: La Palma one of the Canary Islands
   1. One Telescope with main aperture 2 metres
   2. Telescope Camera (0.08 degrees)

BRT FTP NSO/LT

	BRT	FTP	NSO/LT
Telescopes	1 telescope with three cameras	2 telescopes each with one camera	1 telescope with one camera
Location	Canary Islands:	Tenerife Hawaii & Australia	Canary Islands: La Palma.
Main Aperture & field.	365mm 1/3rd degree	2000mm 1/12th degree	2000mm 1/12th degree
Secondary Apertures.	3 degrees & 40 degrees

The BRT has a number of webcams open to all to observe the telescope, the sky day and night and the site.
The FTP has a webcam which is not easily available to show the telescope.
The NSO/LT has three webcams which give internal and external views of the telescope.

The FTP and NSO/LT have small fields of view that require about 36 images to cover the Moon, however their images of individual craters are spectacular.

The BRT can additionally image constellations with 40 degree fields and clusters with 3 degree fields. This appeals to younger pupils.

Spectrometers are being developed for the FTP and NSO/LT.

File Formats and Software Required

For observing all the telescopes have web-based interfaces that do not require special software to be installed on the observer's computer.

The analysis of the observations is made available as follows:

• BRT - FITS 2 Mbyte, JPEG, Java Applet (FITS). Processing software, a Java applet, to manipulate store and print the images is provided on the site - available in the web page
• FT - FITS 2 Mbyte. Good links to FITS viewers - must download FITS viewer software which is available from numerous sources - links are supplied
• NSO/LT - HFITS 1 Mbyte. This is non standard software that must be downloaded from the NSO/LT site (Why non-standard? Why H-Compression when most schools have broadband?). Can only view with LTImage program.

(FITS - Flexible Image Transport System - http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov)

FITS files hold the maximum scientific information about the image whereas JPEG files only hold what might be called the 'visual image'.

FITS files must be converted before they can be pasted into a pupil's work. The Bradford Java Applet is an effective converter. JPEG files may be included without conversion.

Both formats can be printed from their respective software.

Teacher comments on Web Site Navigation indicate:

BRT: Easy
FTP: Quite Easy
NSO/LT: Quite Difficult

Projects

• BRT has links to the 21st Century Science programme and a detailed National Curriculum programme from KS2 to KS4. With comprehensive teacher notes and lesson plans
• FTP has a number of good projects
• NSO/LT has a good range of information pages and links to the National Curriculum.

Number of Pupils Reached

The BRT has the philosophy of providing a resource to support the basic levels of understanding the astronomy and space parts of the National Curriculum. This means that the users will not be experienced astronomy enthusiasts and will only know of 20 or 30 objects in the sky. The telescope can observe all these in half an hour or so which supports its claim that it can service all the school students in the UK. The FT and NSO/LT projects will appeal more to astronomy clubs, sixth form work and undergraduate projects. Here there is no limit on the number of objects that can be observed which means that observing time is the key limitation. For NSO/LT 5% of the time is allocated to schools.

The FTP can be accessed by classes for half-hour slots. There are about 12 such slots in a school day and about 195 days in a school year. If each class has about 20 pupils this would allow about 50 000 pupils to be involved each year.

The BRT is limited only by the number of requests that their web servers can handle. The NSO/LT is limited by the number of requests. If each request takes 2 minutes then it can service 30 requests per hour. There are about 3 000 000 pupils between the ages of 10 and 18 years who could participate.

Time Available for Telescopes in the Classroom

It is estimated that most teachers could allow three periods per 2 or 3 year course for a resource like a robotic telescope; one period to introduce and plan, one to use the telescope and one to review the results. Extended use is just not possible in the National Curriculum environment unless it provides curriculum material for the National Curriculum.
Fitting in with the School Day
Service schedule telescopes allow the flexibility to match the school rhythm. If a period has to be cancelled or there are pupils absent, there is no problem. With a Direct mode telescope if the moment is missed, it has gone forever. Schools are not likely to have funds to buy additional sessions.

Class Interaction and Logon Issues Service scheduled telescopes can have the whole class interacting with the server at once and can provide a personalised response to each pupil, even if they all request the same image!! BRT can do this now and NSO/LT could do this but does not have the multiple individual logon capability.

Direct remote control telescopes have one member of the class driving and the rest of the class are spectators. This is the mode of the FTP.

Both these modes raise class-control issues.

The Value of Planning

For a dedicated group of pupils the process of planning their observations is possibly more valuable than setting the telescope to make them. The FTP requires meticulous planning or the valuable observing time is lost.

The BRT and NSO/LT are not time-critical in this way.

Public Displays

For use in Science Centres and the like, the Direct mode telescope has all the advantages, as long as the weather is good at the telescope!

Declaration of Interest

This survey is indebted to work done by many teachers and their comments but especially to Alan Pickwick of the Royal Astronomical Society and Manchester Grammar School and a member of our National Advisory Board. We would welcome e-mail comments to improve this comparison.

John Baruch.
April 2006

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