Monitoring the night sky with the Cerro Tololo All-Sky camera for the TMT and LSST projects

David E. Walker; Hugo E. Schwarz; Edison Bustos

doi:10.1117/12.671567

23 June 2006 Monitoring the night sky with the Cerro Tololo All-Sky camera for the TMT and LSST projects

David E. Walker, Hugo E. Schwarz, Edison Bustos

Proceedings Volume 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes; 62672O (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671567
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

The All-Sky camera used in the LSST and TMT site testing campaigns is described and some early results are shown. The All-Sky camera takes images of the entire visible hemisphere of sky every 30s in blue, red, Y and Z filters giving enhanced contrast for the detection of clouds, airglow and the near-infrared. Animation is used to show movement of clouds. An additional narrow band filter is centered on the most prominent line of the sodium vapor lamp spectra and is used to monitor any man-made light pollution near the site. The camera also detects aircraft lights and contrails, satellites, meteor(ite)s, local light polluters, and can be used for stellar extinction monitoring and for photometry of transient astronomical objects. For outreach and education the All-Sky camera can show wandering planets, diurnal rotation of the sky, the zodiacal light, and similar astronomical basics.

Citation Download Citation

David E. Walker, Hugo E. Schwarz, and Edison Bustos "Monitoring the night sky with the Cerro Tololo All-Sky camera for the TMT and LSST projects", Proc. SPIE 6267, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes, 62672O (23 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671567

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