Ruch, G. T. (2012, June), The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--22066

\bibitem{asee_peer_22066}
  Ruch, G. T. (2012, June), \emph{The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students}
  Paper presented at 2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas.
  10.18260/1-2--22066

Gerald Thomas Ruch.  "The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students".  2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2012.  https://peer.asee.org/22066 Internet.  19 Jan, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_22066}
  Gerald Thomas Ruch.
  "The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students".
  \emph{2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 2012, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2012.
  https://peer.asee.org/22066 Internet.  19 Jan, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_22066
author = "Gerald Thomas Ruch"
title = "The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students"
booktitle = "2012 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2012"
month = "June"
address = "San Antonio, Texas"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/22066}
number = {10.18260/1-2--22066}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                               Building a Robotic ObservatoryOur university's recently constructed robotic astronomical observatory is a fully automatedfacility that can be controlled through a web browser over an internet connection and is alsocapable of unattended operation. Mechanical and electrical engineering students at ourinstitution were instrumental in the design, construction, calibration, and operation of the facility.For example, during the construction and early testing, an electrical engineering student wasemployed to resolve issues with communications between the embedded controller on thetelescope mount and the primary control computer. At the same time, a group of mechanicalengineering students in our introductory astronomy course, as an alternative to the traditionalastronomy lab, developed a procedure to polar align the telescope mount and produced ahandbook for operation of the telescope. Additionally, because the facility is located on theupper deck of a parking ramp, we needed a way to automate control of the security lights. Anelectrical engineering student designed and built an embedded controller to communicate withthe primary observatory control computer to ensure that the security lights remain off duringobserving sessions.Our observatory is also particularly novel due to its location on the upper deck of a four storyparking ramp. Generally, a telescope pier should be isolated from the surrounding structure sothat vibrations from the building do not degrade image quality. Our pier is tied directly to thesupport structure of the parking ramp. However, our tests indicate that vibrations from the rampdo not significantly degrade the image quality at the telescope. In this paper, we outline thetechnical specifications of the observatory and its general performance characteristics anddescribe in detail several of the projects undertaken by the engineering and physics students thatultimately made the facility a success.
AU  - Gerald Thomas Ruch
CY  - San Antonio, Texas
DA  - 2012/06/10
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Impact of Building a Robotic Observatory on Engineering Students
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/22066
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--22066
ER  -