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Proud to be part of LJMU,
in partnership with the Dill Faulkes Educational Trust

 

Telescope Status and Weather


Weather Snapshot page

These pages show the weather conditions and status of a telescope at a particular moment in time. You can use them to check on the current weather at a telescope, or look back through the archive to see what it was like when your observation was taken.

There is quite a lot of information on the page, so in the list below, we will take you through a page one part at a time.

Main Heading

Main Heading

Here you can see which telescope you are checking and the exact time that the data you are viewing was collected. (This may be slighly different from the requested time, but only by a minute or so).

There is also an information box which will tell you if the telescope is Waiting for something, Moving to a new object, In Position and pointing at an object or simply with the enclosure Closed. The colour of the box may change to highlight important states.

Weather Data

Weather Data

Weather information is shown in this section. This includes temperature, humidity, pressure and the direction and speed of the wind. There is also a box which will warn of wet or icy conditions and a final one which keeps track of the position of the Sun and will tell you if it is day, twilight or night at the telescope.
Weather Data - Errors

Again, the boxes can be colour coded to highlight important information. If a box is Yellow it means that the telescope needs to be careful how and what it observes. If a box is Orange, then the telescope cannot observe and will be closing or closed.

SimCam

SimCam

Here you can see a simulated image showing what the telescope would look like if you could see it. It shows what direction it is pointing in and whether the enclosure is open or closed. The enclosure building has been made slightly transparent so that you can see the telescope inside - obviously it is not really like this!

Sometimes there is no information about exactly what the telescope is doing (for example during the day when it is turned off) so this image will say Status Unknown on it.

Sky Image

ConCam

In the bottom right-hand corner, there is a picture of the sky over the telescope. If there is a suitable image from a SkyCam, then this is shown. These are very useful as they are an actual picture of the sky over the telescope and will show things like cloud.
Sky Map

Sometimes there is no ConCam image available - for example the cameras are turned off during the day. If this is the case, a simple Sky Map will be shown instead.

Exploring the Weather Archive

If you want to look in more detail at the weather archive at the telescope, you can search through entire days, weeks, months and years in one go using the Weather Archive Data Selection tool.