Dust pollution monitoring at the TNG telescope

Ignazio Porceddu; Valentina Zitelli; Franco Buffa; Andrea Ghedina

doi:10.1117/12.456725

2 January 2002 Dust pollution monitoring at the TNG telescope

Ignazio Porceddu, Valentina Zitelli, Franco Buffa, Andrea Ghedina

Proceedings Volume 4844, Observatory Operations to Optimize Scientific Return III; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.456725
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

The Italian Galileo telescope (TNG) is part of the Roque de Los Muchachos astronomical complex, also referred as ENO, European Northern Observatory. Astronomical sites must be carefully selected in order to maximize the scientific return from the fairly large investment they require, both in terms of money as well as of human resources. This also means to maximize (and/or optimize) the amount of time available for observations, so that the requirements of the telescope to have good performance in both optical and NIR wavelengths strongly depends on meteorological conditions (e.g. differential air temperature between inside and outside telescope dome, presence of atmospheric dust, etc.). TNG site is monitored on a continuous basis by an automatic weather station, which provides on line measurements of a few local meteorological parameters, e.g. temperature and relative humidity. Since a few month we added a multichannel dust monitor to the set of meteorological sensors. This four channel facility provides the size distribution of atmospheric dust particles, being able to detect and discriminate among four different particles sizes: 0.3, 0.5, 1 and 5 micron. This contribution will present the first preliminary data which have collected at the Roque site close to the TNG dome, in order to analyze the (possible) relationship between dust data and meteorological parameters trend.

Citation Download Citation

Ignazio Porceddu, Valentina Zitelli, Franco Buffa, and Andrea Ghedina "Dust pollution monitoring at the TNG telescope", Proc. SPIE 4844, Observatory Operations to Optimize Scientific Return III, (2 January 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.456725

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