Hands-on experience in astronomy through practical projects.
This year there will be four projects in different fields of astronomy / astrophysics / technology. Teams are going to be assembled according to students' fields of interest. The list of projects:
- Dome Control
- Meteor Observation and Analysis
- Photometry Group
- ULF Observations of Ionosphere
- Space-Nokia Group
Dome Control
On a nearby hill of Tican an astronomical observatory is in the making. For any observatory to make the most of its potential, it needs to be computer controlled and automated as much as possible.
The task of this group will be to automate dome rotation. First, a position sensor for the dome will be built. Then a microcontroller will be put in place to read the sensor and to operate dome motors. Finally an application needs to be developed that will communicate with the controller and provide an interface for human operator. This needs to be done with future automation of telescope in mind.
While building required hardware, students will learn basics of digital electronics and programming PIC microcontrollers. For software development .NET platform will be used, offering students a chance to get familiarized with object-orientated approach to programming and gain experience in developing software as a team.
Team leader: Fran Hrzenjak, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Meteor Observation and Analysis
Goal is to learn about visual and video meteor observation, data reduction and analysis techniques, and to try to correlate visual and video meteors in the same field of view. Starting with the introduction to the visual observing method by International Meteor Organization (IMO), including processing and reporting, we'll proceed to the Croatian Meteor Network (HMM), its hardware and software setup and data reduction process. Emphasis will be on practical observation under the real sky during the night, comparing it with the data from the local HMM station. We'll also try to improve the HMM software processing workflow, with the goal to get all recorded meteors processed the next day.
Team leader: Alan Pevec, Red Hat
More information coming soon ...