English (UK)
The new astronomical camera, named “PlanetCam UPV/EHU”, has been designed to be attached to the telescopes of the German-Spanish Astronomical Centre (Calar Alto Observatory), where it has obtained its first data, but also to the telescopes placed at Aula EspaZio Gela at the Higher Technical Scool of Engineering of Bilbao (ETSIB) and at Pic du Midi Observatory in France.
The first shots have been presented by Professor Agustín Sánchez Lavega, Director of the Planetary Sciences Group and of Aula EspaZio Gela at ETSIB, in the European Planetary Science Conference held in September 2012 at Madrid.
Professor Sánchez Lavega points out that ”the first results are very promising, showing that the camera is able to produce very good images that will be useful to study diverse atmospheric phenomena at planets, and to follow up rapidly changing processes such as impacts due to meteoroids, asteroids or comets on different bodies, specially on Jupiter.”
The camera has been jointly designed and built by the company IDOM and by the Planetary Science Group. It uses an extremely sensitive detector, so fast that it allows literally filming the planets in such a way that, with a proper combination of the individual frames from those films, it is possible to compensate the blurring effects that the atmosphere of the Earth induces on planetary images, thus reaching a high sharpness in the final images. At the same time, it is possible to catch events that span only few seconds.
The whole project PlanetCam UPV/EHU includes two cameras in a set. On the one hand we have a channel operating with visible light (the one already built and tested) and, on the other hand, there will be a channel for infrared light that is still in design phase. Once the camera will be complete, the light coming from the telescope will be split into two beams by an optical element, in such a way that each channel will register planetary images in visible and infrared light at the same time.
PlanetCam UPV/EHU is a technological result derived from research in basic science, but it is, also, an educational project that has led to two end of master projects on Space Science and Technology, and to a PhD thesis that is still in process. The project has been funded by the Basque Government, the Spanish Ministery for Economy and Competitivity, the University of the Basque Country and the Provincial Government of Bizkaia, through Aula EspaZio Gela of the Higher Technical School of Engineering of Bilbao.
Images
Composition showing planets Saturn (left) and Jupiter (right) from the first observations made with PlanetCam UPV/EHU at Calar Alto Observatory.
Scheme of the camera PlanetCam UPV/EHU
PlanetCam UPV/EHU attached to the 1.23 m Zeiss reflector of Calar Alto Observatory.
© UPV/EHU and Calar Alto Observatory, September 2012