News / Education
GRAS Announces: Global Rent-a-scope Provides Free Live Images of Comet Lulin
View live images as they download from remotely operated telescope systems
GRAS-003 is a Takahashi TOA 150 with an FLI 8300 One-shot color CCD Camera. The telescope is mounted on a Paramount ME robotic mount. The series of images which were taken at various exposure times was taken remotely from Fountain Valley, California.
Within seconds of acquisition the raw images were winging their way through the 900 miles of fiber optic cable from New Mexico to San Diego, California where they would connect to the main backbone of the Internet. From the San Diego connection they would be almost instantaneously received in the Fountain Valley Control Center.
GRAS operates over 10 separate remote telescope systems located in New Mexico and Moorook Australia. The observatory operator, Arnie Rosner commented, “All systems were trained on the Comet at the same time this morning. There were observers from Germany, Italy, Ohio, USA, California, USA and the Netherlands all imaging simultaneously.”
According to Arnie, a special trial membership in the GRAS Adventure of Exploration is available to the public. Additional information is available here.
Rosner added, “Almost every clear night, we see folks with little or no experience log into our systems and take their own deep space images. The results are absolutely astounding. They can’t believe their own eyes.” He grinned. "It is almost like operating a ground based Hubble telescope," he concluded.
Many members of GRAS and the RAS Observatory routinely perform the following research activities: Astrometry, Photometry, CCD Imaging, Remote Astronomy, Robotic Astronomy, Supernova, Variable stars, doubles star research, binary star research, eclipsing variables, comet research, asteroid hunting, Astrophotography, Imaging of Galaxies, Nebula, Deep Space, Minor planets, and Gamma Ray Bursters.
The GRAS members use the following equipment to perform their activities: CCD cameras, scientific filters, telescope mounts, optical systems, Paramount, Takahashi, ASA telescopes, SBIG and FLI CCD cameras.
