Cloudcroft (observatory)

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Building of the observatory in the Lincoln National Forest at an altitude of 2,751 m

Cloudcroft is an observatory near the city of Cloudcroft in the US state of New Mexico . The observatory, which was built around 1962, has since been operated by different organizations under different names with different telescopes and targets.

history

Cloudcroft Electro-Optical Research Facility

The observatory, which was also referred to as Cloudcroft Observatory , was founded in 1962 by the US Air Force , and was operated by the Air Force Avionics Laboratory (AFAL) until 1982. The Electro-Optical Surveillance Telescope (EOST) was operated from 1964, a 1.22-m- Newton telescope with a three-axis azimuth-elevation-azimuth mount . AFAL carried out a Space Object Identification (SOI) there until 1975. Thereafter, the facility was turned over to the USAF Space and Missile Systems Organization (SAMSO), primarily to study time variations of planetary objects and stars, and remained operational until 1982. In the late 1980s, the telescope was relocated to the Table Mountain Observatory of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory .

NASA Orbital Debris Observatory

3 m liquid mirror telescope. Liquid mercury is located in a bowl that rotates at ten revolutions per minute and, through the interaction of gravity and centrifugal force, forms a parabolic mirror directed towards the zenith .
Recordings of the liquid mirror telescope

From 1995 to 2002, NASA took over the observatory and equipped it with a 3 m liquid mirror telescope to search for space debris. This was accompanied by a renaming to NASA Orbital Debris Observatory . In addition, galaxies with a moderate cosmological redshift in the field of view of the telescope were examined with a series of narrow-band filters . Parts of the telescope were later used in the Large Zenith Telescope . NASA continues the search for space debris in other ways , for example with the 1.3 m MCAT on the Kwajalein Atoll and the Curtis Schmidt telescope in the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory .

From 1997 to 2001 the observatory had a 32 cm Schmidt camera , which was also used to observe space debris.

Cloudcroft Facility

Thereafter, the facility was taken over by the privately owned Tzec Maun Foundation. A 1 m Ritchey-Chrétien telescope is housed in the main building.

Web links

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  1. ↑ BRADFORD A. SMITH, SALISBURY, JOHN W .: EVALUATION OF THE CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO SITE FOR A UNITED STATES AIR FORCE PLANETARY OBSERVATORY . AIR FORCE CAMBRIDGE RESEARCH LABS HANSCOM AFB MA. March 19, 1962. Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  2. ^ J. Lambert, K. Kissell: The Early Development of Satellite Characterization Capabilities at the Air Force Laboratories . In: The Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference . 2006, p. 70. bibcode : 2006amos.confE..70L . Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  3. ↑ JL Africano, TJ Schneeberger, SP Worden: The Cloudcroft Observatory 48 inch telescope . In: Bulletin of the Astronomical Society . 11, 1979, p. 392. bibcode : 1979BAAS ... 11..392A .
  4. ^ Mark Mulrooney: A 3.0 meter liquid mirror telescope . P. 101. 2000. Bibcode:  2000PhDT ....... 101M . Retrieved January 19, 2012.
  5. ^ Paul Hickson , Mark K. Mulrooney: University of British Columbia-NASA Multi-Narrowband Survey. I. Description and Photometric Properties of the Survey . In: The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series . 115, No. 1, March 1, 1998, pp. 35-42. bibcode : 1998ApJS..115 ... 35H . doi : 10.1086 / 313080 .
  6. ↑ Mulrooney, M .; Hickson, P .; Stansbery, Eugene G .: Orbital Debris Detection and Tracking Strategies for the NASA / AFRL Meter Class Autonomous Telescope (MCAT)
  7. ^ NASA: Orbital Debris: Optical Measurements
  8. ^ Orbital Debris Optical Measurements . NASA Orbital Debris Program Office. Retrieved January 7, 2012.
  9. ↑ Ron Wodaski: Horse Head with one-meter telescope . Tzec Maun Foundation. March 2, 2012. Retrieved March 3, 2012.

Coordinates: 32 ° 58 ′ 46.2 "  N , 105 ° 44 ′ 1"  W.