Imaging with robotic telescopes in Australia
As a European "premiere" for amateur astronomers, we give our guests the opportunity to image directly from the AAV center in Lue the beautiful skies of the southern hemisphere thanks to our robotic telescopes placed at theSouthern Galactic Telescope Hosting Australia (SGTHA) (the former MROITF) in Australia.
SGTHA are located within the predominantly rural based Macedon Ranges Shire in the territory of Victoria in southern Australia. Rising to over 610 meters (2,000 ft) above sea level and situated on 30 acres surrounded by mature untouched native forest, the site is uniquely situated to provide general observing, high end astronomical photography and research opportunities for astronomers not only on a local and regional level, but internationally as well. SGTHA even operate their own radio telescope in conjunction with Swinburne University.
Site info:
Coordinates: Latitude - 37°12'46.51"S; Longitude - 144°37'41.03"E
Rainfall: 400 - 600mm/year
Temp Ranges: -2 to 40° C
Elevation: 610 Meters
SGTHA's location offers a naked eye visibility often reaching minimum magnitudes of 6.5 with good nights reaching 7. Seeing measurements yield readings of 1 to 1.3 arc seconds, with exceptional nights in the sub-arc second range. CCD exposures of 15 minutes or more have shown no sky glow artifacts and naked eye views of distant galaxies such as NGC 253 (the Silver Coin galaxy, 10 million light years away) and NGC 5128 (Centaurus A, 14 million light years away) are often achieved. |
We are renting two piers at SGTHA's Remote Telescope Facility (click on movie) and as mounts, we have chosen for both a Paramount ME, still the robotic mount of choice for advanced amateur astronomers.
 ROBOT-1
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1st pier - ROBOT-1
Mount: Paramount ME
Operation: over the internet via ACP
Combination “Widefield”
Telescope: Tak FSQ-106 apo-refractor, modified Petzval design, f.l. 530 mm at f/5
Camera: Apogee Alta U16 KAF-16801E Class 1
Image field (arcmin): 238.8 x 238.8
Resolution (arcsecs/pixel): 3.5
Array dimension (pixels): 4096 x 4096
Megapixel: 16
Pixel size: 9 μm
Filters: LRGB, Ha, SII, OIII
Combination "Deep Sky"
Telescope: Mewlon300 Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain, 12", f.l. 2730 mm at f/9.1
Camera: SBIG ST-4000XMC color camera, ABG (will soon be replaced by a more sensitive monochrome camera with filter wheel)
Image field (arcmin): 19.3 x 19.3
Resolution (arcsecs/pixel): 0.56
Array dimension in pixels: 2048x2048
Megapixel: 4.2
Pixel size: 7.4 μm
Guider:
Tak FS-60C apo-refractor, f.l. 354 mm at f/5.9
Camera: SBIG ST-402E
2nd pier - ROBOT-2 (end of summer)
Mount: Paramount ME
Operation: over the internet via ACP
Similar setup as ROBOT-1, possibly with a 14-16" OTA for deep sky imaging.
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