The DAWN Mission

The DAWN mission is on its way to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres to study each in depth. This is the first time that we have had a dedicated asteroid mission to the two largest asteroids (Ceres is a Dwarf Planet!) It is a US led international mission in which the main cameras (called DAWN Framing Camera or FC) are build in Germany. FC has 7 color filters + 1 clear filter to image the asteroids. Using these filter images we can study the composition of surface units on Vesta to know more about its formation history etc.

However, observational effects like phase angle (in this case Sun-Vesta-Spacecraft) would affect the way we interpret the color data. To minimize these phase angle effects we came up with this crazy idea to observe Vesta from the Earth using DAWN Filters (flight spare) on a small telescope! No one has attempted direct use of the spacecraft hardware to observe the target object before simply because it is logistically very challenging. With great difficulty we managed to find the filters. The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research has mounted these expensive filters on filter holders which can go on a regular CCD filter wheel. After 4 months of hard work by a lot of people at MPS, the filters have arrived in Hawaii. The next 10 days are going to be spent getting this project off the ground so I will be posting regular updates here.

This a collaborative project between The Max Planck Institute (Dr Andreas Nathues), Ironwood Observatory (Ken and Reid Archer) and University of North Dakota (Drs Vishnu Reddy, Mike Gaffey).

Dr.Vishnu Reddy

One Thousand Years of Astronomy in Hawaii

This week we submitted One Thousand Years of Astronomy in Hawaii to Kamehameha Publishing for their consideration. Ken Archer, President of Ironwood Remote Observatories, spent considerable time in the archives of the Bishop Museum researching the early Hawaiian Astronomers.

StarLab Bangladesh Project

The International Astronomical Union is moving forward with their Astronomy for the Developing World Strategic Plan 2010-2020. IAU Vice President George Miley spearheaded this effort and believes that "Astronomy can play a unique role in furthering education and capacity building throughout the world in support of the UN Millennium Development Goals. This programme aims at using the momentum from the IYA2009 and its immense network of 145 countries. There are many existing programmes working on furthering astronomy in the developing world inside and outside the IAU. The plan calls for a cost-effective mobilization of creative scientists, engineers and teachers in the service of international development."

Ironwood Remote Observatories strongly supports the Astronomy for the Developing World program. We are currently assisting the Bangladesh Astronomical Society in providing instruction, computers, software and remote observatory time for a group of up to twenty-five creative scientists, engineers and teachers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After receiving their training and observatory time, each member will be positioned to provide their student population with a very high level of hands on instruction in Astronomy. Ironwood Observatories is also helping to recruit a group of twenty-five Sponsors to fund this project by underwriting the $1,000 cost to train each member of the instruction team. "Very many thanks for your email with news about your efforts in support of the IYA and the IAU strategic plan in Bangladesh. Starlab sounds like an excellent project eminently worthy of support." - George Miley, Vice President IAU

Ironwood Observatories has two automated robotic observatories which provide internet remote telescope imaging to clients around the world. These include the Hands on Universe at UC Berkeley, the Komatsu Elementary School in Hyogo-Japan, Czacki High School in Warsaw-Poland and Dr. Vishnu Reddy who is an asteroid hunter at the University of North Dakota. The project is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh under the supervision of F. R. Sarker, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Astronomical Society. The project is designed to show how to write observing plans and then how to upload the finished plan to the automated remote telescopes at Ironwood Observatories. During the night an automated observing plan will run and in the morning the finished images will be ready for the teachers to download using their classroom computers. The initial goal is to work on observations of near earth asteroids and comets. The final results will be forwarded to The Minor Planet Center at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics which is run by the International Astronomical Union. The long term goal is to take the lessons learned in Bangladesh, build additional remote observatories in Hawaii and launch Teacher StarLab projects into other developing countries forming a global Teacher/Student StarLab consortium.

GLOBAL ASTRONOMY MONTH

Ironwood Remote Observatories has been invited by the University of Hawaii Manoa's Institute for Astronomy to participate in their Open House which is scheduled for Sunday, April 18th between 11:00a.m. and 4:00p.m. This is the forth year that IRO has joined our friends and colleagues in this event.