European small and medium sized telescopes

1
European small and medium sized telescopes

• Paul Murdin
• Particle Physics Astronomy Research Council

2
European astronomical telescopes

• Telescopes in or (at least partly) for Europe
• Astronomical Almanac 1981-84
• Sky and Telescope August 2000 (d gt 2.3m)
• SEDS http//www.seds.org/billa/bigeyes.htm
• FutureFrame http//www.futureframe.de/astro/instr/
  emopt.htm
• plus ad hoc updates
• There is not an comprehensive list
• A job for Opticon ?

3
Telescope locations

• Remote from European city areas, requiring boat
  or plane trip
• On a mountain location but within, say, two
  hours' drive from a European city
• Within an easy hour's journey from a European
  city
• Robotic or remotely operated telescopes starting
  to emerge

4
European telescopes
5
European telescopes

• There are natural groupings in the distributions
• There is a clear break at 5m aperture
• There are groups as follows
• 3.5 - 4.2 m (9 telescopes)
• 2.2 - 2.64 m (7)
• 1.2 - 2.0 m (18)
• 1 metre (15?)

6
Scope of Opticon

• The scope of the Opticon WG on SMTs makes almost
  consistent sense
• Telescopes at national, bilateral or
  international observatories with a European
  component
• Telescopes between 1m and 5m
• Telescopes at mountain top observatory sites

7
Training for astronomical research

• Existing educational budgets would tend to
  support the more convenient telescopes
• There are many conveniently located 1 m
  telescopes but much of Europe has no convenient
  access even to 1 m telescopes
• The 2, 2.5 or 4 metre telescopes tend to be
  remote or very remote
• Such telescopes could be exploited for the
  transition between undergraduate training (1m
  class) and professional research (4m)
• i.e. postgraduate training

8
European confidence-building

• There is a human motivation to study astronomy
• It is important to build confidence in science in
  Europe
• Astronomy is an international, scientific venture
• Astronomy is a motivational inspiration for
  developing economies
• Enlarge access to the high status observatories

9
Use of Small-Medium Telescopes

• General purposes
• Support of 8 metre class telescopes
• Dedicated programmes, e.g.
• variable star monitoring (e.g. machos)
• extra-solar planet, SN or NEO searches
• surveys (e.g. to feed from/to 8 m telescopes or
  satellites)
• Education and training
• Postgraduate education and pilot projects
• Enlarge astronomical capability in the developing
  European academic communities

10
Telescope groupings

• Size is not the only relevant parameter, but..
• ..the groupings could form an organisational
  basis for European coordination
• On a voluntary basis (of course)
• group telescopes of similar size and similar
  purpose
• trade telescope time within a group
• coordinate instrument availability

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A grouping

• Both hemispheres (N S)
• Bright/dark use at each telescope
• Common instruments (camera, spectrograph)
  rationally distributed
• Rare instruments not duplicated
• Decide the training role (if any)

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Access within a group

• Possibly could move to a common time allocation
  process..
• ..but could simply liberalise existing procedures
• Establish a quota of time (e.g. 20) for freer
  access to astronomers outside the existing
  arrangements?
• ..or let the quota establish itself?

13
Trading time

• Within a group of similar sized telescopes the
  unit could be simply the night (dark or bright?)
• Obtain observing time by merit but pay money for
  it under an access programmes
• /or
• Keep account of time swapped within the group and
  draw accounts in retrospect
• After a period, perhaps take special measures
  to redress any imbalance

14
Conclusions

• I have done no more than offer some thoughts on
  the topics we need to address..
• ..and tried to bring together some of the
  directions in which we could go
• There is an existence proof of some of the
  solutions
• We need to address these issues practically in
  this Opticon working group