The Burke-Gaffney Observatory: A fully roboticized remote-access observatory with a low resolution spectrograph

TL;DR

The Burke-Gaffney Observatory is a fully robotic remote-access facility equipped with a low resolution spectrograph, enabling students worldwide to perform imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy projects remotely with accessible software tools.

Contribution

This paper introduces a fully robotic observatory with integrated spectroscopy capabilities and custom Python reduction tools, facilitating remote student research at the undergraduate level.

Findings

Successful implementation of a robotic observatory with remote access.

Effective Python-based spectroscopy reduction procedure.

High-quality synthetic spectrum fits demonstrating data analysis capabilities.

Abstract

We describe the current state of the Burke-Gaffney Observatory (BGO) at Saint Mary's University - a unique fully roboticized remote-access observatory that allows students to carry out imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy projects remotely from anywhere in the world via a web browser or social media. Stellar spectroscopy is available with the ALPY 600 low resolution grism spectrograph equipped with a CCD detector. We describe our custom CCD spectroscopy reduction procedure written in the Python programming language and demonstrate the quality of fits of synthetic spectra computed with the ChromaStarServer (CSS) code to BGO spectra. The facility along with the accompanying Python BGO spectroscopy reduction package and the CSS spectrum synthesis code provide an accessible means for students anywhere to carry our projects at the undergraduate honours level. BGO web pages for potential observers are at the site: observatory.smu.ca/bgo-useme. All codes are available from the OpenStars www site: openstars.smu.ca/