Internet address(es):

Main address: www.au.dk

Education Telescope

Aarhus University wants to buy a telescope, dome and camera for educational purposes. The aim is to provide access for all danish high-school students following the course 'Astronomi C', to hands-on observing during daytime hours, thus calling for a telescope on the other side of the Earth (Australia).

Mt. Kent observatory in Australia.

The Danish high-school curriculum allows the possibility to follow a course on astronomy (Astronomi-C). The national legislation for this course requires the students to have tried the acquisition of own data and subsequent analysis of these. One real-life factor making this point very difficult in practice is the weather in Denmark which is unpredictable and with few usable clear nights throughout the year, especially during the teaching seasons. Aarhus University is therefore developing a teaching telescope to be deployed at the Mt. Kent observatory in Australia — this location allow the telescope to be available for night-time observations during daytime in Denmark, thereby the students can work with it during normal class hours. At the Mt. Kent observatory we are actively involved in long-term research projects with Australian astronomers involving advanced research infrastructure consisting of telescopes (of the same type as this procurement) and high-resolution spectrographs. The current project wishes to embed the operation of the educational telescope in the frame of this scientific collaboration (using the type of telescope) — with the main emphasis on stable long-term operation, maintainability of the procurement and development of the control software to be used by students. This requires that the staff at the site have full knowledge of the telescope and instrument such that the telescope is always operational.

The telescope will have a diameter of 60 cm, operate at optical wavelengths using a wide field (0,5 deg diameter) camera with a CMOS detector and a filter wheel. The mount will be equatorial. All components should be housed in a waterproof dome of the clamshell type. The telescope will only be used for remote operations, and thus all normal functions (pointing, tracking, guiding, focusing, image exposing, dome open/close) must be remotely controllable. Due to the use for educational purposes we wish to develop our own user interface for danish students, thus the control software must allow for this. Our long-term goal is further to develop the system for robotic operation.

Aarhus University wants to buy a telescope system. Due to the desire to ensure long-term operation and efficient and affordable maintenance and adaption into existing software frame-works only 1 supplier is able to deliver the system that meets these needs without adding significant time and cost to the software development and long-term increase in maintenance costs. Thus the selection of another supplier will pose a risk for the project.

Internet address: https://erhvervsstyrelsen.dk/klagenaevnet-for-udbud