Bareket observatory
| Bareket observatory | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 One of the main telescopes in Bareket observatory | |||||||||
| Location | Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, Israel | ||||||||
Coordinates | |||||||||
|
Website http://bareket-astro.com | |||||||||
| |||||||||
The Bareket Observatory (IAU code B35 ; 35.0317°N Parallax sinφ 0.84991 cosφ +0.52524)[1] is an astronomical educational observatory owned and operated by the Bareket family. It is located east of the city of Maccabim, near Modiin.
Also serves as the official International Dark-Sky Association representative of the region. [2]
Equipment
The observatory developed the Israeli Internet telescope, a robotic telescope system which enables students and teachers to have full control on its state of the art telescopic system, cooled CCD camera and CFW from their home or school, from any part of the world that have an Internet connection. The Internet telescope is offered free of charge to students and teachers in Israel as a part of the observatory IYA2009 activities (usage regulations available on the observatory's web site).
The observatory also has a 38 cm diameter astrograph telescope, which is a wide field reflector mounted on a robotic computer-controlled equatorial mount. It equipped with a cooled CCD camera, 10 positions computerized filter wheel, photometric filters and a spectrograph. The observatory's visitors uses a variety of telescopes; as 8" and 11" SCTs and a special planetary 12" bino-reflector.
Once a year the observatory produces the Astronomical Olympics for schools.[3]
Observatory's stated goals
The observatory is open to anyone who has an interest in the night sky and wishes to learn about the universe in a scientific manner.
The observatory maintains astronomy courses and classes as an integral part of the observatory's activities.
- Developing new methods of communication.
- Developing new techniques to improve multicultural cooperation.
- To promote and distribute the latest technological advances to within the educational system
- Adapting the use of new astronomical, technological and scientific tools to enhance the learning experience.
- Enabling all students with equal opportunity to benefit from all of the advances in the research program.
Outreach and activities
Besides the regular activities that are taking place at the observatory, it also set up public observations in remote areas for schools and individuals that don't have the ability of going to an observatory for physical or financial reasons. Once a year the observatory makes the Astronomical Olympics for schools and developing the state of the art tools for remote learning, such as:
- Remote controlled Mars rover diorama, as a part of the Planetary society's Mars Station Project
- Remote controlled Internet telescope (The Israeli Internet telescope) which serves great amount of educators and students all over the world.
- Live astronomical web casts which open to all the interested.
- A monthly Astronomical magazine, in Hebrew.
- Open public observations, on special events, which usually attract hundreds of participants.
References
- ↑ IAU list of observatories . Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ↑ IDA Country Contact List PDF (307 KB) . Retrieved 5 October 2009.
- ↑ Astronomy in Israel - olympic, Bareket observatory
External links
- Hebrew version
- English version
- Public outreach at the Bareket observatory
- Article on educational activities, Universetoday site
- Article on educational activities, Astrophotoinsight site
- Activities in Israel, Captain Internet, HaAretz newspaper (Hebrew)
- International year of Astronomy 2009
Coordinates: 31°53′17″N 35°01′54″E / 31.888189°N 35.031694°E