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Astronomical Site Monitoring System

The Astronomical Site Monitoring System (ASMS) offers essential protection against adverse conditions while optimizing the observation experience by taking advantage of favorable conditions. This system tracks long-term weather trends and predictions, monitoring sky conditions including extinction factors, temperature, humidity, and particle density. The fully automated system operates a 16-inch Cassegrain telescope equipped with high-speed CCD and DIMM instrumentation. It also features real-time environmental monitoring, weather history, and lightning detection, ensuring safe operations and enhanced data collection for astronomers.

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Astronomical Site Monitoring System

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  1. Astronomical Site Monitoring System • Adverse condition protection • Take advantage of really good conditions • Long term weather trends and predictions Dan Klinglesmith 08/16/2002

  2. ASMS • Sky conditions • r0, τ0 and θ0 • Extinction • Meteorological conditions • Wind speed & direction • Temperature, Relative Humidity, Pressure • Dew Point • Environmental conditions • Cloud cover • Particle density • Lightning detection • Seismic activity

  3. Sky Conditions • Differential Image Motion Monitoring System • r0 • Sarazin & Roddier (1990, A&A, 227, 294) • 5 to 10 ms exposures • τ0 and Θ0 • Sarazin & Tokovinin ( Venice 2001, Beyond Conventional Adaptive Optics) • 1 to 5 ms exposures plus forecasts of winds aloft from NCAR

  4. DIMM System • 16-inch Cassegrain telescope, DFM • 3rd magnitude and brighter stars ( 46 to choose from) • DIMM instrument inside telescope • 2 sub apertures • B, V, R and I filters • High Speed CCD outside telescope • 1 to 20 ms exposures • Sub frame rates > 500 Hertz • Fully automated operations • Star finding and tracking • Data collection and reduction • Data archiving

  5. DIMM System • Automated operations continued • Operator displays and alerts • Broad band photometry • Extinction coefficients • Photometric stability

  6. Meteorological sub system • Weather history • Long term history of weather conditions at MRO • Telescope protection • Stop operations when wind speed > “X” meters/second

  7. Environmental sub system • Lightning detection • Working with Langmuir to determine proper lightning detection • Seismic activity • Working with IRAS/PASCAL to provide long term seismic detectors at each end and middle of the array • 1 – 1000 hertz frequencies and amplitudes • All sky camera • IR camera looking for general cloud cover and faint cirius • Westpfahl Turbulence monitor • Turbulence measured at 3 levels above ground • Correlate with DIMM measurements

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