GROVE CREEK WESTERN OBSERVATORY
Housing the "Wheaton Telescope"
 Latitude: 33° 49' 46.5'' S. Longitude: 149° 21' 58.5" E. Elevation (geometric): 959m. Time Zone: +10UT AEST

 
The roof opens from the middle, with 2 motors on the southern side, remote controlling each half of the roof.
This building is located 30 meters west of the main domed observatory, measuring 5.6 meters x 4.6 meters

Roof Motors:
One of two remote control roof motors, mounted on the southern side of the Remote Western Observatory.
Installed by "The Door Man" company of Kelso, NSW.

Meet the Wheaton Telescope Project Staff:

Steven Williams
Managing Astronomer		 Tim Barker
Wheaton College, USA		 Andrew Mattingly
Wheaton Project		 Greg Ford
Assistant		 Geoff Gilbert
Our Local Farmer


Wheaton College Observatory Home Page in Norton, Massachusetts, USA.

The Wheaton Telescope is a fully internet remote controlled telescope, housed in Grove Creek's remote controlled western sliding-roof observatory, 30 meters (100 feet) west of the main domed observatory. It is a research and educational facility run as a joint collaboration between Wheaton College in Norton, MA, USA and Andrew Mattingly. The Grove Creek Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, provides the observatory building and resources, which is maintained by Steven Williams and Greg Ford.

After meeting with Professor Tim Barker of Wheaton College, during his visit to Grove Creek in October 2003, a 30.5cm (12") Meade LX-200 (Classic Model) Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, SBIG ST-8XE CCD camera and accessories were shipped to Australia and installed on the 20th of January, 2004. Within 6 months, the upgrades to make the existing observatory fully remote controlled were completed and the project became fully operational on July 1st, 2004. The 12" LX-200 was initially run only as a "test bed" to design and build a totally unique and user-friendly remote internet observatory for Wheaton College students. However, the results went far beyond expectations and was very popular among the students and the facility, during its 2.5 year operation. The facility provided a valuable research tool and real opportunity to do astronomical research - not only for under-graduates but thesis and independent study work, which was carried out with the project. Wheaton College supplied the telescope, SBIG ST-8XE CCD imaging camera and accessories, as well as jointly funding the ongoing maintenance costs and expenses of the project.

In September 2006, it was decided to decommission the 12" LX-200 due to the lack of available repair parts, after running the telescope full time for over 17,470 hours non-stop (and several blown motors and motherboards). At a later stage the ST-8XE camera also died. It was repaired and upgraded to a ST8-XME Class 1 chip and kindly loaned by Wheaton College for Grove Creek's C14 Internet Telescope. The Wheaton Telescope was then upgraded to a  14" Meade RCX-400 with a SBIG STL-1001E large format CCD Camera and 2" BVR filters in January, 2007. However, due to problems with the RCX400, Andrew Mattingly's private Meade 10" LX-200GPS telescope is being used until such time as the 14" RCX-400 can be integrated.

The Wheaton Telescope:

10" Meade LX-200 GPS - SBIG STL-1001E CCD Camera
 AP=250mm FL= 2,760mm FR=f/11.04 FOV=30.6^min square
Array= 1024x1024 @ 24microns/pixel. Image Scale=1.794^sec/pixel

The entire remote control operation was designed and programmed by Andrew Mattingly. Andrew jointly funds 50% of the ongoing expenses of the project with Wheaton College. The observatory building, video cameras, night sky camera and other computer systems and accessories were provided by Steven Williams, the manager of Grove Creek.

How does the Wheaton Telescope Work?

Three computers control the operation:

1 - The Telescope Control Computer
2 - The Observatory Server
3 - The Sydney Web Server

The "Telescope Control Computer" is located in the remote controlled Western Observatory at Grove Creek. It controls the telescope pointing (within 1arc minute accuracy), CCD camera, Optec temperature compensated auto-focuser, monitoring light for the telescope status video camera and the Observatory's motorised sliding roof. The pointing accuracy of the system is done by automatically taking a short, low resolution CCD image through the telescope and then the software automatically compares that to how it should appear in a huge stellar catalogue. If the stars from the image do not match the catalogue, the telescope is "jogged" to the exact location of the night sky. This sort of accuracy is essential for automatic Super-Nova hunting and finding/mapping minor planets or asteroids. The "Telescope Control Computer" is connected via an underground Ethernet cable to the "Observatory Server", located 30 meters away in the main building's control room.

'The "Observatory Server" constantly sends out data from our Weather Station and Boltwood Cloud Sensor to the "Telescope Control Computer" for roof control, with software and relay hardware to control the roof motors. The Boltwood Cloud Sensor not only monitors cloud conditions but it is so sensitive, that only a tiny sprinkling of rain is needed to instantly trigger the observatory roof to close and lock. The weather station, via the Observatory Server, will also signal the Telescope Control Computer to trip the roof relays to automatically close if rain is detected, the humidity becomes too high, high winds are present, the internet connection is lost or if the sun is about to rise.

The "Observatory Server" is also responsible for the remote controlled security video cameras to safeguard the entire facility, which provide constant video surveillance - triggered by automatic motion detectors. A sophisticated back-to-base alarm system with video, motion detection and infra-red sensors are also incorporated at Grove Creek (protected by battery backup and UPS systems) to guard the Observatory against possible intruders. (Thanks very much to Fordray Electronics in Orange, for the donation of the alarm system and also thanks to Greg Ford, who installed it at Grove Creek).


Live Monitoring Security System donated by:

Top - Our 2 sliding roof observatories / Wheaton Telescope
Bottom - Northern view and Eastern view of Radio Telescope

Online computer video surveillance security and 4 security cameras were donated and installed by Jeff Brooks from "CrimeWatch Digital Security Solutions". Other computer hardware and accessories donated to the project by individual Grove Creek staff. The project is maintained by Steven Williams and Greg Ford - for the enjoyment of providing a service to Wheaton students, who are in the Northern Hemisphere and do not have access to the Southern Skies. In addition, our local farmer who lives 460 meters north of the Observatory, Geoff Gilbert, assists with PC and telescope resets - as well as providing security for the facility. The observatory has full back-to-base internal and external alarm systems.

The Weather Station and Cloud Sensor - Protecting the Remote Observatories:

      
The wireless Weather Station showing sensors (Cloud Sensor at top) and receiver system.

We use the Oregon Scientific, model WMR918, wireless professional weather station (shown above) to safeguard the remote observatories. The Boltwood Cloud Sensor is the white angled tube, shown on top of the weather mast. The weather station also provides the Trunkey Creek area with helpful online weather information and detailed historic data. For this, we use the FreeWX Weather Software written by Andy Keir, which reads the data from the serial port on the weather station to display useful weather data in a graphical form as well as uploading the data via FTP, to our Online Weather Web Page.

Here is a sample screen grab of the output of the weather station software, that is freely available to everyone, which we provide as a public service to the Trunkey Creek residents and users of our internet telescopes:

Would you like the graphical program that updates LIVE from our weather station on your desktop?
Download the FreeWX web client for Windows 98/XP/Vista, unzip and install.
Read the enclosed readme.txt file for installation instructions.

Satellite Internet Connection from the Wheaton Telescope to the Sydney Server:

ADSL is not available in such a remote location. Most mobile (cell) phone services are not even in range at the Observatory (only "NextG" will work) We use the IPStar broadband satellite network, that use the next generation satellite technology, which reduces the previous very poor latency inherent with such connections. Supporting Adaptable Coding & Modulation (ACM) which is proprietary technology that adjusts modulation, coding and gain "on the fly" on a per user basis to improve link availability. For example, the modem can identify rain and overcast weather, increasing power to stabilise the connection. QOS (Quality of Service) is used to allocate full bandwidth for the Wheaton Telescope CCD images, being uploaded to the server in Sydney. We use extensive port forwarding, advanced access control and inbound IP filter security for each port, to protect our systems. Although latency is always an issue with broadband satellite, PC takeover software is certainly usable and once setup, the data that uploads from the telescope control computer to the Sydney Server, is most reliable.

84cm dish with 1W transmitter at GCO

Satellite Modem on LAN

The "Sydney Web Server" is where all the magic comes together! It receives the raw data from the "Telescope Control Computer" from the internet, sent by the broadband satellite connection at the Observatory. It enables account holders to login and operated the telescope to take CCD images via the Internet, just using a simple web browser! At the time, this was a break-through in remote telescope operation, as other remote controlled telescope operations require users to have detailed knowledge of both telescope pointing control software and CCD Camera imaging software. However, with the Wheaton Telescope, no special software is required at all! The web user interface is extremely user friendly and very powerful, containing a huge database of catalogued objects and compatible with any internet browser software.

In summary, the Wheaton Telescope at Grove Creek is totally unique in its operation. Powerful, sophisticated, fully self-protected but still easy to use - from the novice to the professional astronomer. Users just enter their desired object from millions of objects and the image will be taken for them - always landing right in the middle of the CCD field of view. Or, the server can suggest a large number of interesting objects to the student to study. This is not just taking "pretty pictures" - many important research programs have been conducted with the Wheaton Telescope, including the search for Gamma Ray Burst Stars and the search for near earth orbit crossing asteroids - along with many other important astronomical projects.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS CONDUCTED
WITH THE WHEATON TELESCOPE AT GROVE CREEK:

Grove Creek Observatory is part of NASA's Gamma Ray Bursts Coordinates Network.

Check out NASA's GCN Network - the optical search for gamma ray bursts.

Grove Creek Observatory is a registered International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Centre
Observatory (Number  E16) and is involved with the search for near earth asteroids.
Click here for our current and past minor planet observations..

Suggested Software for Wheaton Telescope Users:
Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Microsoft Time Zone, The Sky, CCDSoft


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