Observatory

The Fairborn Institute Robotic Observatory (FIRO) is accessed remotely over the Internet by students and staff members. It features an 11-inch telescope with Schmidt-Cassegrain optics, a Sidereal Technology control system with on-axis Renishaw encoders, and a mount designed and built by undergraduate students at Cal Poly and Institute staff members. It is equipped with a ZWO ASI 1600 MM CMOS camera behind Sloan griz filters and a 1.5X Barlow. The observatory is remotely operated most clear nights, and its high-speed computer is accessed remotely during the day for data reduction and analysis. The Institute will be a participant in speckle interferometry observations using a 1-meter PlaneWave Instruments telescope in Chile.

The telescope mount for the Fairborn Institute Robotic Observatory was designed and built by Cal Poly students and Institute staff members. The telescope features 11” Schmidt-Cassegrain optics and a Sidereal Technology (SiTech) control system.

The instrument payload of the FIRO telescope consists of a Clement scissors focuser, filter wheel with Sloan ugriz filters, and a ZWO ASI 1600 MM cooled CMOS camera.

The primary observational software, SiTechZWOCam, controls the telescope, camera, filter wheel, and focuser in real-time over the Internet to obtain speckle interferometry observations of close doubles.

The Speckle ToolBox (STB) is used to reduce data using bispectrum analysis to regain phase information. Shown is the reconstructed image of a close double star.

BARO: Boyce Astro Robotic Observatory

DARO: Dixon Astro Robotic Observatory

KO: Kipshoven Observatory

GBO: Great Basin Observatory