Tuesday 21 June 2016

Welcome back!

Welcome back to telescope.org. The website and the telescope have now completed the transfer to the Open University.

If you are a registered user who agreed to have your account transferred, you should find that your archive is as you left it.

If you have any problems with the use of the website or you account then please contact the telescope.org team.


A Change of Name

As the telescope is no longer operated by The University of Bradford we are obliged to change its name. The telescope will now be known as The Autonomous Robotic Telescope (ART). The website has been changed to reflect this.

What Next?

We will make an attempt to fix the issues with the telescope system that are currently preventing observations. If successful, observations will restart and, after a period of time, subscriptions will be reintroduced.

What Will the Open University Bring to telescope.org?

The Open University is constructing new astronomical facilities on Mount Teide Tenerife. Two new domes will house the OUs existing remotely operated telescope, PIRATE, and a new, Completely Autonomous Telescope - COAST.

We have operated the PIRATE telescope remotely for over 6 years. It is used for a range of research and education programs.

The new COAST facility will operate in a very similar way to the existing ART and, after a period of commissioning and testing, observations requested via telescope.org will feed to COAST instead of ART. It is our intention that COAST will have a near-identical equipment set-up to the ART (reusing several of the cameras). We expect to offer access to individual users and run a schools program - similar to way in which the Bradford Robotic Telescope was operated.

These new facilities will form the OpenScience Observatories. More on this nearer the time.....

Keeping You Updated

We will keep you updated via this website on progress with our attempts to fix the ART and the construction of the new facilities.