Remote Telescope Fundraising

Now that all of the components for Insight Observatory's remote Astronomical Telescope for Educational Outreach (ATEO) have been acquired, our organization has officially launched a fundraising effort to cover the cost of hosting and maintenance of the telescope.

The instrument is slated for installation at the SkyPi Online Observatory located in New Mexico in 2017.  Once up and running at the remote hosting site Insight Observatory will be assessed a monthly fee that will cover the hosting and maintenance. This is where we need help. If we want to accomplish our goals of bringing the universe into the classroom it is essential to call upon the generosity of those who are willing to pledge their support to keep the ATEO operational.

Students Studying Astronomy Online.

Fundraising is being accomplished through Patreon, a crowdfunding platform ideally suited for organizations like ours. By supporting Insight Observatory via Patreon you not only provide much-needed funds, but your generosity is also amply rewarded. Depending on how much you choose to give you can receive rewards ranging from recognition on our website to accessing our image database to actual reservation time on the telescope itself. Please visit our Patreon page for more information and details on how to become a patron of Insight Observatory's remote Astronomical Telescope for Educational Outreach.

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The Big Bang!

Back around 1993, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) of Great Britain (the ONLY authority, on celestial nomenclature, naming of celestial objects, etc.)**, put out a sort of 'call for papers', in Sky & Telescope magazine (yup, we astronomers are so creative when it comes to magazine titles), to all astronomers, both amateur and professional, worldwide; it was a request (demand), to come up with a new name, for a long time, 'thorn-in-the-side' issue: "The Big Bang".

Artist Rendition of the "Big Bang".

Like all astronomers, the IAU wanted to crush it. It was childish, nondescript - and it had to go.

The specs for the new term: two words only - and, it had to be descriptive, in some way, of the current state of the universe...

So, after I read the call, I went outside to my telescope, threw my elbow, up onto the optical tube, looked up at the clear, dark night, and asked myself, "OK - what is the universe doing, right now?"

Well, it was doing, basically, one thing - expanding. That expansion was the largest, most powerful event that had ever taken place - anywhere!

Instantly, I thought, "The Great Expansion!" (Ooh! - how clever). And, that was the term I submitted to the IAU...

Three months later, in Sky & Telescope, the IAU published the results of the request. They had adopted a new term, to replace "The Big Bang". This term had been submitted by only six astronomers, worldwide - and I was one of them: the term was, 'The Great Expansion'. I was afraid, for a moment, that I was going to launch into a performance of, "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" - or something - right there in my living room - right in front of my wife! Thankfully, after a spell I regained my composure; then I told my wife... Well, the public didn't seem to care much about the IAU's decision; once it gets something so "cute" stuck, in its collective craw, it becomes difficult to dislodge and, so, 'The Big Bang', remains the term, favor, to this day...

International Astronomical Union

**(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The International Star Registry™, and similar organizations, charge a fee to "name a star" after you, or some loved one, and even present you with a certificate saying as much. However, that "certificate", is just an agreement between you and them - no one else. If that's OK with you then, go for it; you've bought yourself an agreement. In fact, competing companies market their own name catalogs, so, the 'name' of any given star, depends on which company you're doing business with! The IAU neither sells naming rights nor does it authorize any other company or organization to do so. The IAU cautions consumers that products and services marketed by other entities have no formal or official validity whatsoever. With a few exceptions of ancient, or Arabic names, all-stars, are in fact, designated by a Greek letter and catalog number only.)^

^(In 1998, the International Star Registry™ has issued a violation by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs for deceptive advertising, for claiming "official" naming rights, and have since discontinued this claim).

Outside of the IAU, no organization, individual, or other entity can, technically, legally, or in any other respect, 'name' a star, for or, after, anyone.

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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Remote Robotic Telescope Lab Notes - Part 1

This will be an ongoing series of articles focusing on the testing of our telescope and all the components that make up the entire imaging system. The goal of these exercises is to thoroughly test every component and the entire system together prior to installation at SkyPi in 2017. We want to hit the ground running when the scope is installed; fixing problems after the final installation would not be impossible, but due to the remote location it would be time-consuming and potentially more expensive than if we identify all problems beforehand.

The Lab...

We recently acquired a second-hand Finger Lakes Instruments ProLine 16803 camera: this large 16-megapixel camera will image wide-field views through our fast 16" f/3.75 Dream Aerospace Systems astrograph. The goal for this exercise is to simply test out the camera for basic functionality; as a second-hand camera, we need to be sure it still functions properly.

The first test was to install the FLI Software Installation Kit (with apps, drivers, etc) on a Windows machine (specifically Windows 10), connect the USB cable from the camera to the computer, and then attach the power supply to the camera. With the camera powered up the FLI software successfully connected to the camera. So far so good!

Our next test was to connect to the camera from TheSkyX Professional (again on Windows 10) and grab a test image...once again no problems.

Test on Windows 10, Success!

Now things got interesting: for our next test, we wanted to connect to the camera from TheSkyX on Linux (Ubuntu). We wanted to test this scenario because we plan to use a Raspberry Pi device to run TheSkyX and drive the mount/camera at the observatory, and since I did not have a Raspberry Pi device immediately available, trying on Linux was the next best thing. After a few false starts and failure to connect issues, I got this to work by installing the FLI SDK and compiling an FLI module that could be loaded into the Linux kernel. Once this was done, we connected successfully and grabbed a test image.

Finally, we wanted to try connecting from Linux using INDI (KStars & Ekos: http://www.indilib.org/about/ekos.html... We are not sure if we will use these tools or not in our final environment but it would be nice to know if it did work. The good news is we had no problems connecting to the camera with Ekos and capturing a test image. Hurrah!

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