 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
Operation DIF-FUS Universidad de sonora |
|
| Besides being an innovating observatory in
many aspects, the OCS also is an extremely economic project as much in its construction,
operation and maintenance, being only 0,38% of the cost of a conventional observatory.
This is an extraordinary advantage of the remote control operation. The facilities in 'Cerro Azul' will be visited periodically to carry out maintenance and cleaning, being developed the main activity in the Bases of Operation at the Campus of the University of Sonora in Hermosillo and Magdalena de Kino, Sonora. Being a solar-stellar observatory, the operation of the observatory will be of 24 hours a day when the weather allows it. In a typical routine of observation, the solar observers in the morning start reading the state of the instrumentation of the OCS by remote control. Something very important will be to review the meteorological readings, which will mark the possibility of starting the observation or not, depending on the humidity level, wind speed and precipitation. Once reviewed this information, the observer will broadcast a signal to activated all the systems and open the 'gore' cupola that protects the instruments. Later, the telescope will be directed towards the Sun starting the observation. According to the program of the day, the observer will put in operation the tuneable filters for three spectral lines and the filter of He I, with CCD video and cameras, the registering of the activity solar focusing in the regions associated with coronales holes or those within the plans of international observation in network. The images will be upload to the Internet available for other investigators and public in general, meanwhile the OCS will be receiving information from the satellites that observe outside Earth atmosphere in X ray and Ultraviolet. When finalizing afternoon, the observer will deactivate the filters and cameras to yield the control to the stellar astronomers who will come to remove the secondary optics that allows the path of light towards the package of stellar instrumentation that will have an CCD camera and a spectrograph. The night observers will have a software that will automatically focus the telescope towards a galaxy, will obtain an image of the same one and, while the telescope is focused to the following galaxy, software will compare the image with previously obtained ones in search of supernovas. Every night they could observed about 150 galaxies. Concluded the night, the stellar astronomers will move the secondary optics again to yield the paht of light towards the solar package of instrumentation and start routine again. The observatory will not operate when the weather conditions are not favorable or by maintenance workings, during 'engineering time'.
Last Update: January 22, 2000. |