European small and medium sized telescopes

Paul Murdin

Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council

European astronomical telescopes

Telescopes in or (at least partly) for Europe: Astronomical Almanac 1981-84 Sky and Telescope August 2000 (d > 2.3m) SEDS http://www.seds.org/billa/bigeyes.htm

FutureFrame http://www.futureframe.de/astro/instr/emopt.htm

… plus ad hoc updates

There is not an comprehensive list A job for Opticon ?

Telescope locations Remote from European city areas, requiring boat

or plane trip On a mountain location but within, say, two

hours' drive from a European city Within an easy hour's journey from a European

city

Robotic or remotely operated telescopes starting to emerge

European telescopes

0

5

10

15

20

25

1-1.

49

2-2.

49

3-3.

49

4-4.

49

5-5.

99

7-7.

99

9-9.

99

Aperture (m)

Nu

mb

er Near city

Mountain

Remote mountain

European telescopes

There are natural groupings in the distributions

There is a clear break at 5m aperture There are groups as follows

– 3.5 - 4.2 m (9 telescopes)

– 2.2 - 2.64 m (7)

– 1.2 - 2.0 m (18)

– ~1 metre (15+?)

Scope of Opticon

The scope of the Opticon WG on SMTs makes almost consistent sense

Telescopes at national, bilateral or international observatories with a European component

Telescopes between ~1m and 5m Telescopes at mountain top observatory sites

Training for astronomical research Existing educational budgets would tend to support the more

convenient telescopes There are many conveniently located 1 m telescopes but

much of Europe has no convenient access even to 1 m telescopes

The 2, 2.5 or 4 metre telescopes tend to be remote or very remote

Such telescopes could be exploited for the transition between undergraduate training (1m class) and professional research (4m)

i.e. postgraduate training

European confidence-building

There is a human motivation to study astronomy It is important to build confidence in science in

Europe Astronomy is an international, scientific venture Astronomy is a motivational inspiration for

developing economies

Enlarge access to the high status observatories

Use of Small-Medium Telescopes General purposes Support of 8 metre class telescopes Dedicated programmes, e.g.

variable star monitoring (e.g. machos) extra-solar planet, SN or NEO searches surveys (e.g. to feed from/to 8 m telescopes or satellites)

Education and training Postgraduate education and pilot projects Enlarge astronomical capability in the developing European academic

communities

Telescope groupings

Size is not the only relevant parameter, but.. ..the groupings could form an organisational

basis for European coordination On a voluntary basis (of course)

group telescopes of similar size and similar purpose trade telescope time within a group coordinate instrument availability

A grouping

Both hemispheres (N & S) Bright/dark use at each telescope Common instruments (camera,

spectrograph) rationally distributed Rare instruments not duplicated Decide the training role (if any)

Access within a group

Possibly could move to a common time allocation process..

..but could simply liberalise existing procedures

Establish a quota of time (e.g. 20%) for freer access to astronomers outside the existing arrangements?

..or let the quota establish itself?

Trading time Within a group of similar sized telescopes the unit could be

simply the night (dark or bright?) Obtain observing time by merit but pay money for it under

an access programmes &/or Keep account of time swapped within the group and draw

accounts in retrospect After a period, perhaps take ‘special measures’ to redress

any imbalance

Conclusions

I have done no more than offer some thoughts on the topics we need to address..

..and tried to bring together some of the directions in which we could go

There is an ‘existence proof’ of some of the solutions

We need to address these issues practically in this Opticon working group