Beata Rogowska, Research Foundation Baltic Institute of Technology, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Maciej Konacki, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Research Foundation Baltic Institute of Technology; Arkadiusz Chimicz, Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Rafal Pawlaszek, Sybilla Technologies; Stanislaw Kozlowski, Cillium Engineering; Piotr Sybilski, Sybilla Technologies
Keywords: optical sensors, astrographs, scmos cameras, synthetic tracking
Abstract:
There are several Polish entities carrying active research in SSA and contributing to the new Polish Space Situational Awareness Centre. One of them is the Baltic Institute of Technology (Baltech), a non-profit research foundation. As part of its core research area, Baltech is developing a new optical sensor, Panoptes-1AB. Panoptes-1AB is a double system composed of a unique TEC300VT-7DEG astrograph and a 0.5-m Planewave telescope. The astrograph is a unique instrument 0.3 m in diameter and f / 1.44. The instrument will be equipped with a Kepler KL4040 sCMOS camera. Panoptes-1A will offer staggering 5? × 5? field of view with 4.4 seconds of arc per pixel. The Panoptes-1 telescope will be initially installed at the Pomeranian Science and Technology Parks area in Gdynia, Poland. It will be a temporary site for R& D purposes and first on sky test and later relocated to the southern hemisphere. On the other hand, the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences has just secured funding for a new 1-m, wide field (f/1.3) survey telescope Solaris-5 as an extension of the existing Solaris network. Solaris-5 will be equipped with a Kepler KL6060 sCMOS camera.The telescope will offer a large for this aperture 2.7? × 2.7? field of view with 1.59 seconds of arc per pixel and will be installed in the northern hemisphere. The telescopes which are expected to become operational in Q1 2020 and Q2 2021 respectively will be fully dedicated to SST and NEO and will employ the technique of synthetic tracking to help boost SST and NEO survey and tracking capabilities.
Date of Conference: September 17-20, 2019
Track: Optical Systems & Instrumentation