POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System

Details POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System

Nov 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006pasp..118.1550s&link_type=abstract

The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 118, Issue 849, pp. 1550-1557.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

12

Instrumentation: Photometers, Occultations, Eclipses, Planets And Satellites: General

Scientific paper

Occultations of stars by small bodies in the outer solar system are opportunities to make high-resolution measurements of their geometries and orbital elements and to detect or probe their atmospheres. Such events are limited in space and time, so it is desirable to deploy highly capable camera systems on multiple fixed and/or portable telescopes anywhere in the world, potentially on short notice. Similar considerations apply to planetary transits and solar eclipses. We have designed a camera system called POETS (Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System), which is optimized for occultation and related observations, and have assembled five such systems. The core of this system is the Andor Technology DV-887 (now DU-897) frame-transfer camera, featuring a high frame rate, minimal dead time, high quantum efficiency, and low read noise. An electron-multiplying mode lowers effective read noise to below 1 e- pixel-1 and is capable of photon counting. Each POETS includes a compact GPS timing system with microsecond accuracy, and a high-performance computer system capable of sustained fast frame rates. Each POETS is designed to be transportable as carry-on luggage and is adaptable to a wide variety of sites. POETS were deployed for the first time for the 2005 July 11 Charon occultation event, and they performed extremely well on telescopes with apertures from 0.6 to 6.5 m. Three POETS were subsequently deployed for the 2006 March 29 total solar eclipse, and five for the 2006 June 12 Pluto occultation.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and POETS: Portable Occultation, Eclipse, and Transit System will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1345601