MONET telescope
MONET ( MO nitoring NE twork of T elescopes) is a telescope project of the University of Göttingen , the University of Texas at Austin and the South African Astronomical Observatory . It consists of two identical 1.2 m Ritchey-Chretien telescopes, the first of which was installed in December 2005 at the McDonald Observatory in Texas and the second in September 2008 at the South African Astronomical Observatory near Sutherland ( South Africa ).
Both telescopes, which can be controlled fully automatically via the Internet , were financed by funds from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation and built by the Bavarian company Halfmann Teleskoptechnik . Since 2006, they have been serving both scientific research and the education of students. Thanks to the two locations in Texas (northern hemisphere) and South Africa (southern hemisphere), every object in the sky can be observed, thanks to the different longitudes of the two locations, objects close to the equator can be observed by both telescopes one after the other over a longer period of time. Identical telescopes minimize the costs for production and operation.
The observations can be remotely controlled both live and robotic through a complex program. Due to the time difference, for example, German students can observe live with the telescope in Texas during normal lessons. Robotic operation enables long-term monitoring of variable objects such as binary stars , young stars and quasars , as well as the rapid detection of unexpected events such as gamma-ray bursts and supernovae . Another field of use is accompanying observations in connection with observations on satellite telescopes and large ground-based telescopes (for example the 9 m Hobby Eberly Telescope (HET) in Texas and the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)). To do this, the software must create an intelligent monitoring plan (scheduling), but at the same time also allow short-term changes. The telescopes are monitored on site by a weather station which automatically closes the telescopes in bad conditions.
The first MONET / North telescope was officially handed over in Texas on March 28, 2006 ("Dedication") and has therefore been in use since then, the second MONET / South is currently being put into operation ("Commissioning").