Educational activities

During period 38 we have had a short (2 hours) training course from Uppsala University observing with FIES and the telescope remotely. Most of the work during the semester has been concentrated on preparations for the NORDFORSK/Onsala summer school at Tuorla observatory in Finland which will use the NOT in remote mode. The planned observations include imaging and spectroscopy with ALFOSC and imaging with NOTCam. For this, requirements were defined for the remote observing systems for each instrument including the telescope control, data display, data transfer, communication, remote observing instructions, data reduction/quality control and the set-up at the remote side. This is largely based on the experience we already have gained with last year's remote observing school at Moletai observatory in Lithuania but do include some new aspects as this uses different instruments while also the (expected) bandwidth to Tuorla is significantly higher which allows a system that is (even) more similar to normal observing at the telescope.

Currently we are in the process of testing or setting-up tests for the different parts including using the connection to Tuorla. A full-blown test involving all the part that are going to be used is also planned before the start of the school.

The staff has also been heavily involved in the practical preparations as for designing a poster, setting-up a web-page including an automatic application form, selecting the students, project definitions, observing preparation, and doing back-up observing.

During the STC and Council meetings we also will have the on-site course (5 nights) from the Stockholm University.

As part of the training of the NOT students presentations by the staff were organized on detectors and data reduction of NOT data using IRAF.