astronomy

UK Schmidt Telescope

UK Schmidt Telescope is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand UK Schmidt Telescope rather than just read about it. In short: The UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) is a 1.24 metre Schmidt telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory); it is located adjacent to the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia. It is very similar to the Samuel Oschin telescope in California.

Key takeaways

UK Schmidt Telescope belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect UK Schmidt Telescope to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of UK Schmidt Telescope from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) is a 1.24 metre Schmidt telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory); it is located adjacent to the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia. It is very similar to the Samuel Oschin telescope in California. The telescope can detect objects down to magnitude 21 after an hour of exposure on photographic plates. It was originally built and operated by the United Kingdom, starting from 1973, and was merged with the former Anglo-Australian Observatory in 1988. It has been wholly operated by Australia since the UK withdrew from the AAO in 2010 (though the name is unchanged). The UKST is a Schmidt camera, with a design based on the Oschin Schmidt Telescope. It is a survey telescope with a 6° by 6° field of view, originally imaged onto a 35 cm square glass photographic plate, and was the primary source of optical survey data in the southern sky from the 1970s to after 2000. The original sky survey plates were digitally scanned by the Space Telescope Science Institute to create the Guide Star Catalog for the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Digitized Sky Survey. Although the UKST was originally used to take photographs of the sky, traditional photographic glass (and film) became largely superseded by large electronic CCD detectors in the late 1990s, and after 2000 the UKST was used mostly for multi-object spectroscopy with the 6 degree Field (6dF) instrument. 6dF uses a robot to position up to 150 optical fibres on a metal plate mounted at the focal plane of the UKST, which then carry light from the targets to a spectrograph which sits on the floor of the dome. The 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS), a redshift survey of 120,000 infrared-selected galaxies was completed in 2005, and from 2003–2013 the UKST then carried out the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) to measure the radial velocities and metallicities of around to 0.5 million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Two new spectroscopic surveys called TAIPAN and Funnelweb are planned post-2015.

See also Malcolm Hartley Palomar Observatory Space Telescope Science Institute List of telescopes of Australia

References

External links Australian Astronomical Observatory UK Schmidt Telescope homepage Archived 6 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Guide Star Catalog Digitized Sky Survey 6dF Galaxy Survey RAVE Survey Archived 20 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine The Taipan Galaxy Survey The FunnelWeb Survey

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with UK Schmidt Telescope

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what UK Schmidt Telescope claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to UK Schmidt Telescope before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about UK Schmidt Telescope ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of UK Schmidt Telescope

In research: UK Schmidt Telescope appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses UK Schmidt Telescope in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: UK Schmidt Telescope is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1973 establishments in Australia, Optical telescopes, Siding Spring Observatory, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for UK Schmidt Telescope outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study UK Schmidt Telescope in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what UK Schmidt Telescope means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain UK Schmidt Telescope out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is UK Schmidt Telescope in simple terms?

Why does UK Schmidt Telescope matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study UK Schmidt Telescope?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on UK Schmidt Telescope.