Altitude Limits
in
Our online training has a comprehensive course that gives further details about how to go about plannng a successful observing session.
Altitude Limits
The Faulkes Telescopes are sited alongside other professional telescopes in locations that offer some of the best observing conditions anywhere in the world. Particularly in Hawaii, the conditions are very good for observing as the summit of the mountain the telescope is on (Haleakala) lies 3000m above sea level. This puts the telescope above a good proportion of the Earth's atmosphere that would otherwise distort the images that the telescope obtains.
However, there is still atmosphere, light pollution and chemical pollution present and the telescope has to look through these to see the objects you wish to image.
With the help of the diagram to the right, you can see that if the telescope is having to look at an object almost horizontally through the atmosphere then it is looking through more of the Earth's atmosphere than if it is looking directly upwards at the zenith. Looking through more of the atmosphere towards the horizon distorts the images more and means that the resulting image may not be as good as you expect.
To help you with this, the telescope systems warn you when you are attempting to image an object less than 30 degrees above the horizon. Anything lower than 25 degrees is not allowed.
You should take this into account when planning your observing session.
