Overview

Facility:
The Prince William County Observatory complex consists of two robotic domes that are mounted to the roof of Forest Park High School. The larger ten-foot fiberglass dome houses a sixteen inch Meade telescope,mounted on a German equatorial mount. Attached to the telescope will be a ST-7 SBIG (Santa Barbara Instrument Group) CCD camera with a motorized color wheel for digitizing of deep stellar images. Students will control the dome and telescope either by LAN or WAN systems and images will be downloaded directly into the student's base computer. A weather station mounted within the dome will control whether or not the dome will open based upon preset meteorological limits. A video security system mounted inside the dome will allow users to inspect the interior components of the dome without having to go directly inside the dome. Another color video camera system with sound mounted inside this dome will allow for video conferencing within Forest Park and the dome or other Prince William County schools and the dome.

Possible areas of astronomical study for all Prince William County students include:

Supernova searches
Asteroid searches
Comet searches
Lunar and Solar Studies
Determination of types of galaxies
Determining distances to galaxies
and other stellar objects
Distances, colors and magnitudes
of stars
Determination of sizes of craters,
mountains, rills and plains
on the moon
Integration of cross-curricular
lesson plans within Forest Park

The second, smaller, completely robotic dome known as a Robo-Dome will house an eight inch Meade telescope with solar screen. Attached to the telescope will be a video camera and computer. This will allow for continuous live video feed into Forest Park High School and other county schools of the sun and the moon. Students will be able to visually inspect the sun for solar flares, prominences and sunspots. At night, after removal of the solar screen, live video feeds of lunar features into classrooms and into home computers throughout Prince William County.

The PWCS Observatory complex could also be accessed by the SkyDome Planetarium housed at Hylton High School for public programs. The Planetarium director will have the capability of controlling the domes and bring live video feed as well as other images into the planetarium.