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The Faulkes telescope ASISTM project is an Australian federally funded project to pilot the use of the Faulkes telescopes by Australian high school students. The resources page is http://www.astronomy.mq.edu.au/deepspace/ and my contributions can be found below in word document form.

SGHS Faulkes ASISTM projects

These activities were developed for the SGHS Astronomy Club
http://www.sghs.nsw.edu.au/Co-curricular/Astronomy/index.html

Note: The documents for these activities contain some specific instructions for my students like the location of files. This means that some small changes to the documents need to be made to customise them.

Project 1 – Star Cluster Photometry

Documents:

SGHS Faulkes ASISTM Star Cluster Photometry v1.doc
SGHS Faulkes star cluster photometry.xls
SGHS Faulkes star cluster photometry JS Solutions.xls
M80-B.fits and M80-V.fits
NGC2420-B.fits and NGC2420-V.fits

Aim: To plot a HR diagram for an open cluster and a globular cluster and identify the relative ages of these clusters from their location on the HR diagram.

Application: This activity applies directly to the HSC Astrophysics option in NSW. The whole activity may be too tedious or time consuming but it can be used to introduce students to the process and the data available can be used to construct a HR diagram of the two cluster types. This activity could also be used as an enrichment task in stage 5 science.

Resources: The software used for this project can be downloaded from http://makalii.mtk.nao.ac.jp/

Project 2 – Age of a Planetary Nebula

Documents:

SGHS Faulkes ASISTM Calculating PN Age v1.doc

Aim: To determine the age of a planetary nebula.

Application: This activity applies to the stage 6 physics syllabus and the stage 5 science syllabus in NSW. This task involves an awareness of what a planetary nebula is and a full appreciation of this would come from a students knowledge of basic stellar evolution. The skills involved include physical measurement and mathematical calculations. An extension of mathematical skills involved into a derivation is encouraged wihtin the activity. An assessment of the accuracy of the result compared to reference values is also included.

Resources: This activity is self contained but could be extended.

Project 3 – Mosaicing several images

Documents:

Mosaicing several images v1.doc

Aim: To construct a single image of an object from several images.

Application: This activity is the first part of several stages in a larger activity. Further sections will include making a colour image from B, V and R images and then using photometry to determine the mass of a galaxy.

Resources: The software used for mosaicing images was IRIS (available free for download from http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm). There were problems with using this program installed on a network and having the files stored on a network drive. To overcome these problems I installed the software locally and put the files on a local drive.

To be continued ...

 

Faulkes Telescope Project | Home | Astronomy | Astrophotography | Science | Space Science | Astrobiology | Science Teaching | Related Links | Contact Me