2023 Project Description

Have a Cup of Morning LATTE and Defend Our Sky
This project can be carried out remotely.

Supervisors

Wei-Hao Wang Shiang-Yu Wang
Find out more about supervisors on ASIAA website

Task Description and Goals

LATTE is a 50cm remotely-operated small optical telescope installed at the Lulin Observatory in central Taiwan. It is to observe the night sky for studying solar system objects and for educational demonstrations. Now we would like to expand its capacity to monitoring artificial satellites in low Earth orbits and space debris that may damage these artificial satellites. This will help to identify potential threats to the satellites. Satellites in low Earth orbits will be in Earth’s shadow during the night and therefore be invisible. They can only be observed during day time or twilight time. This summer program is to establish and test the day-time observation capability of LATTE and to study the possibility of observing satellites and space debris. The tasks include studying the strategy to focus the telescope during day time, testing various satellite tracking modes, measuring day-time limiting magnitudes, making real observations of satellites and searching for space debris, and orbit fitting for moving objects. Prospective students should have experience in optical observations or have passed a college level observational course on optical astronomy. The student ie expected to work in the early morning, as the summer weather in the afternoon at Lulin is usually poor.

Required Background

experience in conducting optical observations.