TATLA LAKE ON-LINE OBSERVATORY

The Tatlayoko Think Tank Ltd., in partnership with North Island College (NIC), School District #27 Cariboo-Chilcotin, TELUS, CITS/PLNet, Industry Canada and the Tatla Lake School, has established an on-line observatory at the Tatla Lake School. This project is a wonderful combination of science, education and community.

The concept of the project is that a student will be able to schedule access to the on-line telescope. At the appointed time the student will connect to the telescope server via the Internet, take control of the telescope, slew it to the object of interest, image that part of the sky with the CCD camera attached to the telescope, download the image to the student's home computer, study it, and incorporate it into his/her lab report to be handed in electronically for grading. Remote control of a telescope at a distance is not a new idea. It has been very successfully implemented with the Telescopes In Education Program on Mt. Wilson in California. The Tatla Lake on-line observatory may be the only on-line observatory in Canada!  It is the only one in the Chilcotin and Central Coast for sure!

For any telescope clear skies are vital. The site at the Tatla Lake School on the Chilcotin Plateau offers both relatively cloud free skies, a distinct lack of light pollution, and workable access from the Bella Coola NIC Centre. The other requirements for this facility are dependable electrical power, ready telephone access, and dependable high speed Internet access. The Tatla Lake School meets all of these requirements.

In the future this facility could support additional Astronomical lab courses, and allow some measure of serious astronomical research. For instance, with a telescope of this size, this observatory could participate in the worldwide effort to identify and track Near Earth Objects.

The main drawing point is that an on-line observatory can be accessed from anywhere to support student learning, as well as some modest research efforts by students and serious amateurs.