ROTUZ

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In 2021, the Institute of Astronomy (IA) purchased a system of two mirror telescopes with a total value of nearly half a million zlotys. The equipment was entirely funded by the University of Zielona Góra.

The telescope system consists of a main telescope with a 50 cm aperture and an f/6.8 focal ratio, manufactured in the “Corrected Dall-Kirkham” system by PlaneWave, and an auxiliary telescope with a 28 cm aperture and an f/2.2 focal ratio, manufactured by Celestron in the “Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph” (RASA) system. Both telescopes are mounted on a PlaneWave L-500 Direct Drive azimuthal mount. Both the telescopes and the mount are top-class devices made using the latest technology.

The telescope is located on the so-called telescope farm. Telescope farms are sites situated in areas with excellent observational conditions – primarily a high number of clear nights, negligible light pollution, and low air humidity. A telescope placed on a telescope farm is housed together with other telescopes in a specially adapted building, which usually has one or more retractable roofs.

The e-EyE telescope farm, where the IA's telescope is currently operating, is located in Spain in the Extremadura region. It is the largest telescope farm in Europe, currently hosting 75 telescopes belonging to companies and private individuals from around the world. The IA's telescope began operations there in mid-September 2021 and will remain there for at least a year. After this period, the plan is to move the telescope to the southern hemisphere, to South America.

Main tasks of the telescope:

Conducting observations related to research tasks such as observing asteroids in collaboration with scientists from UAM in Poznań, participating in the GAIA Follow-up project in collaboration with scientists from the University of Warsaw aimed at detecting gravitational lensing events, and observing eclipsing stars in cooperation with the Suhora Observatory belonging to the Pedagogical University in Krakow.
The second task is to conduct observations providing data for the "Space Surveillance and Tracking – SST" project run by the European Space Agency (ESA). This project involves the observation and determination of the orbits of space debris threatening operational satellites and spacecraft. Observations for this extremely important project are conducted by a network of telescopes located around the world, and our telescope will become part of this system. Joining the project was made possible by establishing cooperation with the Polish company Sybilla Technologies, which has been participating in ESA projects since 2014. Sybilla Technologies, as part of the collaboration, provides the software and hardware necessary to automate the observation process and process the data collected by the telescope.

fot. M. Żejmo