Friday 23 January 2015

New Request Constructor

The most important part of interacting with the telescope in Tenerife - the request constructor - has just been upgraded. Over one year in development, this latest iteration should be quicker and easier to use, no matter what you are using the telescope to do.
Some of the new features in this version include:

  • Completely new interface
  • Simple search box for entering target
  • Faster Ra/Dec coordinate entry
  • Month-by-month target visibility graph
  • Recommended popular objects
  • See the position, size and brightness of selected objects
  • Search for objects by tags or by similarity to another object
  • Previews of target based on previous images
  • Visualise the relative magnifications of our cameras compared to your target
  • Recommended filters and exposure times
  • Fewer clicks needed to get from start to finish.
And lots of other little things you can see for yourself!

These improvements should make it quicker and easier to choose an interesting object, see that it is visible right now, and get the best settings for it every time.


All new signups will get this request constructor by default. If you've been with us for a while, you can choose when to switch over, and you can switch back and forth whenever you like while you get used to the new system. To try the new one now, go to the request constructor and follow the link at the top.

We'd like to see everyone using the new request constructor soon. I believe that there's nothing that's quicker or easier in the old one than in the new one. If I'm wrong, we'd like you to let us know.

Are there other improvement you were hoping to see? Tell us that too.