Aberystwyth
University
Institute of
Mathematics and Physical Sciences
Robotic Telescope
Project :
“Serendipitous
Wildlife Imagery”
Three baby gulls and an adult gull near a radio antenna on the IMAPS roof.
For a video (5 Mbytes) from June 2008 click here!
What you can
see:
The white thing on a pole is one of two (the other is just
out of the picture to the right) receivers for satellite signals. these are test units for our receiver chain in the Arctic,
which we use to study the upper atmosphere. The gulls have nested in the coil
of cable just to the right of the left-hand pole. They've also broken open some
of the sandbags used to stabilize the receivers and spread the sand around. The
chicks (and the parents) sometimes sit on these piles of sand. It must be more
comfortable than the roof. The view is from the control room for our robotic
telescope, a couple of floors up – so we can ge a better view of the chicks from here even if
they've gone back into the nest.
About the
gulls:
We have had gulls nesting on the rooftop for a few years
now, but usually on the upper parts of the building. This pair moved into the
coil a bit over a month back (I think!), but the chicks only hatched out during
the first week of June 2008 (the first time we saw them was on Friday 6th
June). By Monday 9th June 2008 they were out of the nest and
wandering around. There are three chicks. Two are about the same size, one a
lot smaller. There are other gulls nesting on other parts of the roof. As of 1st
July the chicks are much bigger and have started to flap wings.
Why we have
the telescopes:
We are using these telescopes for both teaching and
research. Strictly speaking these are "remotely controlled"
telescopes rather than "robotic" as they do not have much automated
capability yet. Remote access allows students and staff to operate these from
home or from their offices without freezing to death outside! For research
purposes we are using these for looking for flashes of light from when
meteorites strike the Moon's surface. In addition we are also using the scopes
to demonstrate close range remote sensing techniques and also for automated
search capabilities for boats and swimmers adrift in the sea. Follow this link to find out more about the telescopes or
to look at our gallery of images taken through the scopes. One of the offshoots of using high
power robotic telescopes and night/day vision cameras that monitor the sky, and
the outside of the robotic telescope dome, is that occasionally we pick up
signs of wildlife. Below is a collection of some of other interesting images
captured so far. Alas most are in black and white as
we find these cameras are more sensitive than colour cameras at night.
Some sort of bird of prey
flies past the external dome CCTV camera – these two images are
1/50th second apart
An inquisitive sea gull examines the external dome CCTV camera. The dome can be seen
in the background. Sea Gull’s apparently have very long tongues!
An inquisitive rook or crow caught on CCTV on 1st July 2008. The dome can be seen
in the background against a spectacular cloud backdrop.
A sea gull shadow sweeps across the exterior of the robotic dome.
Although strictly not wildlife, this helicopter flew past the field of view of the robotic telescope
and was probably several km distant when captured. The de-interlaced exposure of less than 1/50th
second captures the rotor blades frozen in motion.
Cloud video – if you click here you can access a superb time lapse movie of clouds
evolving at different layers in our atmosphere above Aberystwyth. This was recorded
with the external dome CCTV camera capturing 1 image per 10 seconds on 7th June 2008.
If you click here you can access a time lapse view of the Moon from the early hours of the 8th June 2008.
The shimmering on the craters is due to atmospheric turbulence. As the Moon gets lower in the
sky we see it through more and more atmosphere, so there is greater chance for turbulence to
distort the fine scale details in the image. If you click here you can see a short video of the Earthlit (night)
side of the Moon with the illuminated north pole of the Moon just off to the top right. We try to
monitor the Earthshine on a regular basis as it is possible to see occasionally very faint flashes of light from
meteorites striking the Moon’s surface – these would not be visible against the daylight side. For more
information about the robotic telescopes please follow this link.
Associated web sites:
Institute of Mathematical and
Physical Sciences – or what we get up to in
Physics!
The University of Aberystwyth –
our University Web Site
BBC Spring Watch
– to see other wildlife web casts
For further details contact:
Dr Anthony Cook
Institute of Maths and Physical Sciences
University of Aberystwth
Home Page:
The information provided on this and
other pages by me, Tony Cook (a t c @ a b e r . a c . u k), is under my own personal responsibility and not that
of the