Shared Skies telescopes are available for use by students at the University of Louisville and the University of Southern Queensland, and by teachers and students in middle and high schools mentored by faculty at the universities. To arrange to use the telescopes live, or for robotic observations and access to archival data, please contact us by email to kielkopf at louisville dot edu.
The CDK125 described here was in use in the Roll Roof facility during 2011 to explore ways to provide on-line high quality imaging. In March 2012 it was replaced with a longer focal length Celestron C14 chosen specifically for color imaging of planets in real time.
In typical nightly use, this Planewave Instruments CDK125 12.5-inch corrected Dall-Kirkham and an Allied Video Technology (AVT) Prosilica high speed video color camera recorded images of favorably placed objects in the sky, including most of the Messier catalog, the planets and the Moon. There is an archive of best images that improved as new ones are acquired and is available to anyone all the time. The telescope and camera combination provided realistic color images of stars at least as faint as 16th magnitude, and detail as small as 1 arcsecond, in exposure times from a fraction of a second for planets to 30 seconds for nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. The images were provided immediately through a browser in a convenient high quality jpeg format. Uncompressed tiff and fits image files may be downloaded from our servers.
A Takahashi FSQ refractor with a Nikon D200 camera was mounted in tandem on the CDK for wide field color images in short exposures of comets, dwarf planets and asteroids, satellites of the outer planets, the Moon, star clusters and bright nebulae.
Other data from this telescope were acquired on request, including high speed magnified color video imaging for improved planetary resolution, and spectra of bright stars. Teachers are encouraged to contact us for assistance in matching this content with their curriculum. We presently offer support for using images of Jupiter and its satellites, and have data available on request.
All of the images, processed data, software, and instructional materials developed at Shared Skies observatories are offered free for non-commercial use with Creative Commons or GPL licenses after a short proprietary period.
