Spreadsheets developed for the Faulkes Telescope Project

Image analysis tools for students

1. JPEG Viewer.  Spreadsheet based software allowing students of all ages to measure objects in astronomical images and make comparison with familiar objects.  Also measures pitch angles of spiral arms in spiral galaxies.  Accompanying practice worksheets including one using (mainly) Faulkes images to study (a) different scales in the universe and (b) the life cycle of stars. Go to JPEG Viewer page.

2. Profiles - spiral galaxy discs.  Spreadsheet for analysis of surface brightness of discs of spiral and other disc galaxies. Download.

3. Slice.Plots surface brightness profiles of disc galaxies in a simple way, allowing users to print these off and make their own measurments.  Developed with assessed coursework in mind. Download.

4. Profiles - spiral galaxy discs and bulges.  Spreadsheet for analysis of surface brightness of discs and bulges of spiral and other disc galaxies. Download.

5. Profiles - elliptical galaxies.  Spreadsheet for analysis of surface brightness of elliptical galaxies. Download.

6. Light curves.  Allows users to find the rotation periods of asteroids (or the periods of other variable objects) from disjoint sets of light curve data. Download.

Go to page with examples of asteroid light curves.

Utilities for users

1. Observation planner.  Shows which objects in a list are visible for the whole of each half hour observing slot during the night at the telescopes in both Australia and Hawaii (or elsewhere).  Several versions for different types of object, and for users' own lists:

1. Observation planner for galaxies. Download.

2. Observation planner for globular clusters. Download.

3. Observation planner for planetary nebulae. Download.

4. Observation planner for interacting galaxies. Download.

5. Observation planner for users' own target lists. Go to web page with instructions .

2. Planner  Calculates, for any list of objects with RA and dec specified in any format, the times (UT) of the following events in Hawaii and Australia (or any other locations): time of reaching a given altitude (e.g. 30 deg), time of crossing the meridian, time of sinking below the given altitude. Download.

3. Interactive galaxy lists.  User can choose between different useful subsets of the 26,000 galaxies in the RC3 catalogue (e.g. bright near face-one spirals, near edge-one disc galaxies) or define their own selection.  Generates observing lists showing altitude and visibility in Hawaii and Australia for any date and time. Go to page with lists.

4. Twilight.  Shows times of daylight, twilight and astronomical darkness for the whole year at the telescopes in both Australia and Hawaii (or elsewhere). Download.

5. Sidereal clock.  Shows sidereal clocks for London and two telescope sites. Sidereal time can be displayed for a fixed time or current time. Go to page with details.

6. Visibility. Uses sidereal clocks at two telescope sites to calculate visibility of a list of up to 200 objects in half hour slots throughout the day. Users can enter their own list of objects. Go to page with details

7. Distance calculator  Uses Hubble's Law to estimate the distance of an object in Mly and Mpc, given either its recession velocity in km/s or its red shift. Download.

8. RA and dec converter 1   Convert RA in hours, minutes and seconds to decimal hours and dec in degrees, minutes and seconds to decimal degrees (useful for software that requires decimal values when published tables use split format). Download.

9. RA and dec converter 2   Convert RA in hours and minutes to decimal hours and dec in degrees and minutes to decimal degrees (useful for software that requires decimal values when published tables use split format). Download.

10. Hours  Plots bar charts for mid-June and mid-December of number of hours with different light levels in Hawaii and Australia (daylight, twilight, nearly dark, astronomically dark). Download.

Simple simulation

1. Orbital simulation.  A simple visual simulation of orbital motion around a centre of force.  Download.

More advanced simulations

1. Orbital simulation - advanced.  A visual simulation of orbital motion around a centre of force showing the geometry of true, mean and eccentric anomalies and how these angles change during an orbit. Download.

2. Digital development processing simulation  Allows user to simulate effect of varying parameters when using digital development processing. Download.

3. Observed magnitude and phase angle for asteroids  Calculates variation of observed magnitude of an asteroid with phase angle given any values for the parameters G and H. Download.