The aim of this project is to enable impactful research by deploying a new astronomical "movie mode" on the Huntsman Telescope. Movie mode is enabled by the same image sensor technology that is found in mobile phone cameras. Driven by considerable consumer demand, these sensors are now very sensitive and can take much higher data rates compared to sensors normally used in astronomical instrumentation.
Huntsman is one of the first professional astronomy facilities to use this new sensor technology. We have conducted 3 observational proof-of-concept studies in significant areas of astrophysics: exomoon and exoplanet ring detection, tracking a flare star breakout phase and detection of Betelgeuse flux variations during the daytime. Furthermore, we have trialed a daytime satellite monitoring mode, which has activated a Research Translation collaboration with an industry partner.
In the first semester of this project ADACS were able to use the proof-of-concept work to develop a new command line tool that would efficiently capture "move mode" observations from the Huntsman Cameras. Additionally, ADACS software developers undertook a review of the architecture of the telescope control and observing software and have made plans for a second semeser's work, in which the "movie mode" observations will be implemented into the telescope control software.
Check out some of our other projects.
A web app to allow astronomers to quickly and easily classify transient candidates, with links to external data sources, and the ability to download subsets of data for local exploration.
ADACS collaborated again with the StarFit science team. Key achievements included adopting Meson and a multi-stage build approach, and integrating ReadTheDocs documentation into the workflow.
ADACS provided a solid foundation on which the GOTO-XBs team could further build the web app, and provided instructional information to up-skill the team.