max planck institut informatik

Astronomy - Andrei Linţu

This is an informative page about astronomy. You can find some information material about astronomy, the current weather conditions at the MPI Informatics Saarbruecken and the status of our Astronomical Observatory.

MPI Informatik Astronomical Observatory

	Contact: lintu [at] mpi-inf.mpg.de Email: observatory [at] mpi-inf.mpg.de           (this is a mailinglist) Phone: +49 681 9325 625 Location: MPI Roof, access through Room 631 Coordinates: Latitude: N 49°15.468'  Longitude: E 7°02.759'  Altitude: 270m
The Augmented Astronomical Telescope in action. It is housed in our 2.6 m dome, situated on the institute's roof.

Current / Future Projects

• Anyone who gazed through the eyepiece of an astronomical telescope knows that except for the Moon and the planets, extra-solar astronomical objects are hard to observe. We propose a system which projects images of astronomical objects (with focus on nebulae and galaxies), animations or additional information directly into the eyepiece view of an astronomical telescope. As the telescope orientation is tracked continuously, the projected image is adapted in real-time to the object which is currently visible through the eyepiece.


• Using a physically based approach to compute the colors of the sky during the twilight period before sunrise and after sunset we can produce realistic whole sky renderings. The colors at dusk and dawn strongly depend on the concentration of aerosol particles in the air; using our telescope we can take precise measurements of the sky's color and determine the concentration of aerosols in the air.


• When observing stars on a clear night you might have observed that their light is flickering. It is due to the moving layers of air in the atmosphere situated in the starlight's way. This twinkling causes long exposure images of celestial objects to be unsharp; by taking a series of numerous very short-exposure images we can freeze this scintillation and obtain pictures featuring much sharper details.

Available Astronomical Instruments

The Augemnted Telescope Augmented Astronomical Telescope The Telescope LX 200 GPS Meade LX200GPS Series 10'' Meade LX200GPS Telescope with UHTC 10'' Meade LX200GPS Telescope User Manual (pdf) Website with Tips/Tricks about the Telescope Doc G's Info Site (a lot of tips and good explanations) MAPUG-Astronomy Topical Archive (answers to a lot of practical questions) LX200GPS Yahoo Group Meade Autostar Download Site - Includes Tours, Comets and Satellites Custom Firmware Patches Telescope - Optics in General The Three Functions of a Telescope Telescope Calculator Eyepieces 5 mm Tele Vue Nagler - 500x 12mm Meade Illuminated Reticle - 208x 17 mm Orion Stratus - 147x 24 mm Tele Vue Panoptic - 104x 26 mm Meade Super Ploessl - 96x 32 mm TS WA - 78x Cameras Meade LPI Philips ToUcam Pro Webcam Philips Vesta Pro Webcam with SC4.1 Modification Table with Computed Image Sizes for our Cameras  gnumeric  xls Other Accesories 2'' William Optics Diagonal Mirror Lumicon Easy Guider (with focal length reducer)  Lumicon Easy Guider FAQ T-Mount for Praktica, Pentax (all M42) and Canon EOS SLR Cameras General Astronomy Wikipedia Astronomy Portal Sky & Telescope Magazine Sky & Telescope - Observing Highlights Sky & Telescope - This Week's Sky at a Glance Ask an Astronomer at Cornell BBC Space Portal Amazing Space Planetary Photojournal - NASA Night Sky Info - Weekly information about the night sky and articles on selected astronomical topics.

Weather

• Current NOAA Satellite Image
• Cloud Cover

Introductory Material, Sky Charts

• The Monthly Evening Sky Map & Calendar
• Getting Started in Astronomy - Sky and Telescope
• Astronomy Howto - Sky and Telescope
• Free Whole Sky Charts

Deep Sky Object Catalogs

• The Messier Catalog
• Midnight Culmination of the Messier Objects  Midnight Culmination of the Messier Objects (sorted after date)
• The Caldwell Catalog
• The Interactive NGC Catalog
• R.N. Clark's Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects

Astrophotographs

• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Russel Croman
• Robert Gendler
• Noel Carboni
• Jerry Lodriguss
• Johannes Schedler
• Philip Perkins
• Davide De Martin
• Mario Weigand

Some of our own photographs:

The Moon, taken on 13.07.2005, with a Panasonic DMC-F1, afocal projection by Kristian Hildebrand	The Moon, taken on 10.08.2005, with a Praktica MTL 5B, at the telescope's focus by Andrei Linţu and Timo Stich
Moon detail, taken on 19.09.2005, with a Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL, at the telescope's focus by Grzegorz Krawczyk and Timo Stich	Lunar eclipse, taken on 03.03.2007, with a Canon EOS 5D, at the telescope's focus by Grzegorz Krawczyk and Andrei Linţu
A group on flickr, with images taken with / about the telescope.

All photographs are copyrighted by the photographers, whose permission is required for commercial usage. Non-Commercial use is permitted and encouraged. If you use our photographs, please put an acknowledgement and link back to our page.

Astronomy Software

• Stellarium Stellarium User's Guide [pdf]
• Cartes Du Ciel
• Celestia
• Nasa Worldwind - Now with the map of the Moon
• Dan Bruton's Astronomy Software List

Mailinglist

We have a mailinglist to announce events related to the observatory. You can subscribe to our mailinglist using the form below:

Email address:
(optional) Your name:

Construction Sequence

Nov. 16th 2005 - The Foundations are Set	Nov. 22th 2005 - Concrete is There
Nov. 30th 2005 - The Foundation is Ready	Apr. 4th 2006 - The Dome is Assembled
Apr. 5th 2006 - First Lift-off	Apr. 5th 2006 - The Dome is in the Air
Apr. 5th 2006 - Last Adjustments	Apr. 5th 2006 - Final Touch-down

• IRG3:
•  Astronomy
•  - Observatory
•  - Weather
•  - Introductory Material, Charts
•  - Astrophotographs
•  - Astronomy Software
•  - Mailinglist
•  - Construction Sequence