The OpenScience Observatories

The OpenScience Observatories operate two optical telescopes at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, namely: COAST (COmpletely Autonomous Service Telescope) and PIRATE (the Physics Innovations Robotic Telescope Explorer), and an associated weather station.

A picture of the COAST optical telescope with the dome open and the telescope against a bright daylight blue sky.

COAST (Mark III)

COAST is a 17-inch telescope connected to a CCD (Charged-Coupled Device) camera with broad and narrow band filters. It supports direct remote control and autonomous scheduling and is used for both OU teaching and astrophysical research. It can also be used for free through the OpenLearn platform as part of the ‘Astronomy with an online telescope’ badged open course.

A picture of the PIRATE optical telescope within a closed dome.

PIRATE (Mark IV)

PIRATE is a 24-inch telescope connected to a CCD camera with broad and narrow band filters. It supports direct remote control and autonomous scheduling and is regularly used for OU teaching. PIRATE also supports astrophysical research involving the monitoring of variable sources, including transients, exoplanet transits, and near-earth asteroids.

For more details about Open University courses in Astronomy and Planetary Science see here.