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Arrays of telescopes will be set atop the Jade Mountain, which
is the tallest mountain in Taiwan, to monitor the small comets
in the outer solar system, beyond Neptune and Pluto. Known as
the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS), it is the
first international collaboration to have installed such a major
facility in Taiwan. Dr. Charles Alcock of the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) is the American collaborator. Australia
and Korea are the other partners. Sharing of image databases
and discussions via teleconferencing will be regular features
of the group effort, according to the project leader in Taiwan,
Dr. Wean-Shun Tsay. Dr. Tsay is the Director of the Institute
of Astronomy, National Central University (NCU), where one of
the regional operation centers for the very high-speed Bandwidth
Network Service resides.
An innovative
“occultation” technique will be used to detect
small comets that otherwise can’t be detected directly.
Arrays of small, robotic telescopes are used to monitor the
comet occultation. Because of its low latitude, Taiwan is
well situated as an observation site for the ecliptic, where
most comets are believed to reside. And the Jade Mountain
range was identified as the best location.
These
robotic telescopes will be charging their solar batteries
during the day and will be used for observation at night.
On a clear night, about 15 to 100 GB of data will be acquired
and analyzed on site. The system will shut down automatically
under unfavorable weather conditions or during emergencies.
An alert signal of any possible event detected by one of the
telescopes will be sent for follow-up observation by international
large telescope to determine its consistency.
The
telescope array will be arranged initially in an east-west
configuration, with stations 5-10 km apart. By the end of
1999, the team will install three robotic telescopes, each
with an aperture of 50 cm and very fast focal ratio (f/2),
at NCU's Lu-Lin Observatory at 2862 m in the Jade Mountain
range. A year later, one of the three telescopes will be moved
to the West Peak (at 3450 m) of the Jade Mountain, at a 6
km base-line in the east-west configuration. A north-south
expansion, added later, will allow the team to further focus
on the size and spatial distributions of the comets. These
telescopes came from LLNL, the Institute of Astronomy and
Astrophysics of the Academia Sinica and the Institute of Astronomy
of the NCU.
Contributed
by:
Dr.
Wean-Shun Tsay and Dr. Wen-Ping Chen, Institute of Astronomy,
National Central University
Dr. Typhoon Lee, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Academia Sinica
Dr. Chi Yuan, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia
Sinica
Dr. Charles Alcock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Last updated
June 27, 1999 |
Volume
1 
