Control a robotic telescope
March 19th, 2011 at 7:40 pm (Astronomy)
The other day, I came across Observing With NASA, a site that lets anyone submit requests to a network of robotic telescopes. You pick a target and some simple observational settings, then submit your job — and the next day, you get an email with your results.
I had to try this out.
On March 17, I submitted a request to observe the moon, which seemed a good target since it would be nearly full. The next day, I received the excellent news that my image, that’s right, MY IMAGE OF THE MOON, was ready for accessing. Is it not beautiful?
You can also request images of the planets, stars, nebulae, and galaxies. I’m full of praise for this endeavor — what better way to let the public get involved with astronomy than by letting them select which observations to make? The website is easy to use and the results are rewarding. (You can download a FITS file with your data if you’d like to do more analysis, for which tools are also provided.)
Want to take your own picture with the Robotic Telescope Network? Click here!