Search the skies with the Bradford Robotic Telescope
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Version 0 of 1. The Bradford Robotic Telescope sits more than a mile above sea level on the rim of an old volcano on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The telescope, part of the Teide Observatory, captures stunning images of the night sky from one of the best sites for astronomy in the world. From 24th March, for a month, we are making the telescope available free to Guardian readers to look at objects that feature prominently in the sky. To use the telescope yourself, just click here and register for free observing. So what objects can you take a look at? Below I describe some of the more striking features that the telescope can take images of in the coming month, that you might want to explore. Jupiter Jupiter has more than 60 moons. The four largest, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are known as the Galilean moons after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in the early 17th century. Through the telescope website, you can submit a number of requests for images that will capture the moons spread out on each side and crossing the face of Jupiter, revealing them as they appeared to Galileo. The Dumbbell Nebula, Messier 27 Discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier, the Dumbbell Nebula lies 1,360 light years from Earth in the constellation of Vulpecula. The nebula is what remains of a star that once resembled our own sun. The gas stretches across 4.5 light years of space and is heated by an Earth-sized hot central core, called a white dwarf. A spoonful of the core weights a tonne. The Whirlpool Galaxy, Messier 51 A spiral galaxy with arms of stars and dust, the Whirlpool galaxy lies 30 million light years from Earth. The galaxy is in the process of merging with a smaller galaxy, a fate that lies ahead for the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy, though not for another two billion years. A supernova was spotted in the outer regions of the Whirlpool galaxy on June 2nd 2011, another one in 2005 and one in 1997. That’s surprising. Perhaps you will spot one too. The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, or M13 A cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into a region 150 light years across. The cluster is 25,100 light years away and has at its heart a medium-sized black hole which catapults smaller black holes into the depths of space. The moon Take a number of images and watch it through the month. Where would you like to go on your lunar holiday? The Earth is the best view from the moon: four times the size that the moon appears to us, and much brighter with the cities visible in the dark part. From the moon, the Earth phases look just like those of the moon, but unlike our moon it doesn’t appear to move. Instead it is visible in the same place in the sky all the time. The constellations Take the full vista of the beautiful Tenerife sky with the constellations in view. Try Orion, followed by the dog star Sirius with its white dwarf companion. How would you fit the mythical gods into this? The Bradford team are the first to use a robotic telescope to teach practical science and to take advantage of the unique role of astronomy as the only subject where practical science can be taught with robots, since the whole laboratory goes over our heads every night. Practical science is widely regarded as the key to developing the skills of technological innovation and creativity which are the basis of the knowledge economy. The UK is suffering a severe shortage of teachers that can deliver practical science and is scrapping marked practicals from A level and GCSE. The rest of the world is going the other way and the robot telescope services over 160,000 students in many countries of the world. John Baruch is Director of Robotic Telescopes at the University of Bradford. He built the first robotic telescope to prove the technology and now leads the team that aims to deliver a national programme of practical science working with other universities and schools across the UK |