(1): Observatori Fabra, Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts de Barcelona

1. (3): Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada (ROA) (2): Departament d’Astronomia i Meteorologia i Institut de Ciencies del Cosmos (ICC), Universitat de Barcelona (UB/IEEC) (1): Observatori Fabra, Reial Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts de Barcelona Fabra-ROA Baker-Nunn camera at Observatori Astronòmic del Montsec: an instrument update for space debris observation Fors O. (1,2), Montojo F.J. (3), Baena R. (2), Muiños J.L. (3), Núñez J. (1,2), Boloix, J. (3), Merino M. (1,2), Morcillo R. (3) Origins and refurbishment project • This Baker-Nunn Camera (BNC) was commissioned at ROA (San Fernando) in the 60s by the Smithsonian Institution, with the aim of monitoring artificial satellites. • It was designed as a f/1 0.5m photographic wide field (5ºx30º) telescope with a spot size smaller than 20µm throughout the field. • During the 80s BNC cameras were superseded by new technologies (laser, radar and CCD) and it was donated to ROA, where it has been maintained inactive but in excellent state of conservation. • Three other BNC cameras have been already refurbished into equatorial, optically refigured and CCD-based facilities: APT at Siding Springs (Carter, B.D. et. al. 1992), Phoenix at AMOS (Law, B. et al. 2002) and NESS-T at RAO (Hildebrand, A., Mazur, M. & Cardinal R. 2004). • Thanks to these previous experiences we could speed-up and optimize the know-howlearning curve of this complex refurbishment process. Refurbishment process steps: A) Conversion of the telescope mount into equatorial. Motion of RA and DEC axis is geared with digital servo drives and feeded- back with absolute position encoders. B) Design and machine of a new spider vanes and focus system for the CCD. Support is athermal and focus is accurate to a 10µm. C) Design and manufacture of a CaF 64mm field flattener and 180mm fused silica ellipsoidal meniscus lenses to guarantee a 20µm spot size throughout a flat FOV of 6.25deg in diameter. D) Design and construction of an enlarged version (12mx5mx4.5m) of Super-WASP reinforced-glass enclosure (made by GRPro, Inc.). It has turned to be very robust to weather conditions with no incidence to their mobile parts (the sliding roof and south gabling wall). E) First-time design of lens flattened corrected CCD (made by Finger Lakes Instrumentation, Inc.). The flattener lens was placed as close as 0.65mm to the CCD chip. The camera also included a new large aperture (90mm) shutter and glycol recirculation cooling. F) State-of-the-art control software (Elwood Downey, Clear Sky Institute, Inc.) based on INDI device communication protocol. It allows both remote and robotic control of every device in the observatory via Internet. Observing blocks are directly written in XML. Complex environmental conditions decisions are easily scriptable with Perl, bash or other languages. Specifications of post-refurbished Fabra-ROA BNC G) Mirror realuminization and outermost 50cm lens repolishing. Spider vanes and focus support CCD with flattener lens and glycol cooling Realuminizated mirror with SiO2 coating Reinforced glass-fiber enclosure at Observatori del Montsec Scientific project Main window of INDI-based control software in remote mode Manual telescope control in remote mode Pointing model with up to 13 coefficients First technical light Commissioning schedule and space debris observation program • Refurbishing process is finished. • Telescope has been shipped at observing site (ObservatoriAstronòmic del Montsec). • Telescope is ready to be commissioned at the beginning of September 2010. • Most of remote and robotic features of the control software have already been tested. • The following combination of instrumental specifications of theFabra-ROA BNC provides unique efficiency to detect and track faint GTOs, GEOs and other space debris in a very short time: • - Moderately deep limiting magnitude (V~20) with 30s integration time. • - Huge FOV (4.4º x 4.4º) free of optical aberrations. • - Capability of tracking simultaneously in RA and DEC at arbitrary rates. • - Capability of triggering several times the CCD shutter at will during an exposure. • - Preliminar (with non-colimated and unpolished lens) astrommetric accuracy of point-likeobjectsis 0.25 arcsec. • - Millimagnitude photometricaccuracyisexpectedforpoint-likeobjects of 8<V<16. Thisaccuracy has alreadybeen • achievedby APT BNC (Hamacher et al. 2008) in the 8<V<14 rangewitha lesssensitive and coarse pixel CCD. •  The following instrumental aspects will require special attention: • - Flatfieldfor huge FOVs and fast systems (f/1) are challenging. • - Focal length stability with temperature with an f/1 system will require calibration or monitoring. First 4.4ºx4.4º technical image of M31 taken at testing site at San Fernando Observatory with unpolished lens and non-realuminizaed mirror. Contact: ofors@am.ub.es More info: http://www.am.ub.es/bnc