[Previous] | [Session 120] | [Next]
R. J. Nemiroff, J. B. Rafert, C. Ftaclas, W. E. Pereira, D. Perez-Ramirez (Michigan Tech)
We have built a prototype CONtinuous CAMera (CONCAM) that mates a fisheye lens to a CCD camera run by a laptop computer. Presently, one CONCAM is deployed at Kitt Peak National Observatory and another is being set up on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. CONCAMs can detect stars of visual magnitude 6 near the image center in a two-minute exposure. CONCAMs are weather-proof, take continuous data from 2 \pi steradians on the sky, are programmable over the internet, create data files downloadable over the internet, are small enough to fit inside a briefcase, and cost under $10 K. . Images archived at http://concam.net can be used to teach many introductory concepts. These include: the rotation of the Earth, the relative location and phase of the Moon, the location and relative motion of planets, the location of the Galactic plane, the motion of Earth satellites, the location and motion of comets, the motion of meteors, the radiant of a meteor shower, the relative locations of interesting stars, and the relative brightness changes of highly variable stars. Concam.net is not meant to replace first hand student observations of the sky, but rather to complement them with classroom-accessible actual-sky-image examples.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://concam.net. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: nemiroff@mtu.edu