The Ystar telescope at Siding Spring. Photo: Liz Cutts

Korea has excellent astronomers but isn’t renowned for dark skies or access to the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. Fortunately, the UNSW School of Physics was able to help by collaborating on a new robotic telescope situated at Siding Spring Observatory, 400km north of UNSW, just next to our own Automated Patrol Telescope.

The collaboration was born from informal talks at a 2003 conference in Sydney. After signing a Memorandum of Understanding, UNSW undertook site preparation for the new telescope, oversaw the construction of the observatory building by a Wollongong engineering works, helped commission the telescope in 2005, and now provides ongoing technical support on-site.

The Ystar-Neopat telescope itself is fully robotic, and is operated via the Internet from Korea on every clear night. The telescope is engaged on a sky survey with a sister instrument located at the South African Large Telescope site in South Africa. A single image from either telescope covers 16 times the area of the full moon.
Measurement of stellar variability requires a large database of time-series observations, which permit the measurement of photometric variability and positional variability. Light curves of variable stars, active galaxies, gamma-ray bursts, planetary transits, and microlensing events are routinely identified and logged, as are moving objects such as asteroids and comets.

A recently installed video camera now permits 24 hour on-line monitoring of the UNSW-operated telescopes at Siding Spring, as well as the whole sky above Siding Spring Observatory.

Andre Phillips and Michael Ashley