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Faulkes Telescope Project
I have very kindly been given a lot of observing time on the Faulkes 2m Robotic Telescope located at a prime observing site on Maui, Hawaii. My main interest is in observing galaxies, particularly those less accessible from the UK. Below is a selection of images taken during recent observing runs. In most cases the images are made up of 5-minute exposures through red, green and blue filters. Special thanks to the Faulkes Telescope team for allowing this privilege.
All images courtesy and copyright of Faulkes Telescope Project and Nik Szymanek.
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| M65 | M74 | M66 | M100 |
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| M83 | M106 | NGC 253 | NGC 891 |
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| NGC 1097 | NGC 1232 | NGC 2903 | NGC 1365 |
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| NGC 7479 | NGC 7331 | NGC 5195 | M77 |
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| M101 | Centaurus A | M51 | NGC 2841 |
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| NGC3938 | M99 | M64 | M87 |
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| M61 | M16 | M27 | M57 |
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| M88 | "Turtle Nebula" | "North America Nebula 1" | "Pelican Nebula" |
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| "North America Nebula 2" | Crab Nebula | Orion Nebula | M43 |
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Rosette Dark Nebulosity 1 |
Rosette Dark Nebulosity 2 |
M82 |
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M96 |
NGC 3132 |
M3 |
Eskimo Nebula |
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M76 |
M109 |
M17 |
TrifidNebula |
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NGC 6302 |
Crescent Nebula | Hubble's Variable Nebula | NGC 4038 |
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| NGC 891 mosaic | NGC 1365 mosaic | ||
Faulkes Telescope Information
The Faulkes Telescopes' professional quality is inherited from telescopes built in the UK for Europe’s premier observatory at La Palma in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. Each telescope has a 2 metre diameter main mirror and a field of view up to 30 arcminutes in diameter. As with all modern telescopes they are mounted so they can move in elevation and azimuth (bearing) independently, with the two axes controlled by computer to track the movement of stars across the sky. The telescopes are housed in a state of the art enclosures that open like a clam shell.
Each telescope is equipped with a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera having 2048 by 2048 individual picture elements (pixels). The field of view of the instrument will be 4.6 x 4.6 arcminutes. This will allow excellent images of stars and galaxies to be sent within minutes to the classroom PC via the Internet.
The University of Hawaii is also planning to supply the QUIRC Infrared camera to FT-North after it has finished duty on the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea. Among other benefits, this will allow FT operations to be extended into the local morning (i.e. day time use) which is important for school users in Hawaii. The date for the availability of QUIRC is to be confirmed.
Spectrographs for the telescopes are being developed by the University of Leicester. While initially intended for a specific research use, it is planned to make them available to other users later.
The telescopes have been manufactured by Telescope Technologies Limited located in Birkenhead, Merseyside, in NW England. Further technical details of the telescopes are available on their website.
The whole telescope system is designed to operate automatically. A control centre in the UK (and others in Hawaii and Australia) will send instructions via the Internet on which observations are to be carried out. The telescope control system will then decide if the weather is good enough to open the enclosure, point the telescope and take the images requested, then move on to the next observation. At the end of night, or if the weather deteriorates, the enclosure will be closed. Maintenance will be restricted to occasional cleaning and lubrication.
