Université de Fribourg

Site selection for OWL using past, present, and future climate information

Graham, Edward ; Sarazin, Marc S. ; Beniston, Martin ; Collet, Claude ; Hayoz, Michael ; Neun, Moritz ; Goyette, Stéphane

In: Proceedings of SPIE, 2004, vol. 5489, p. 102

Selection of an ideal site for the new generation of Overwhelmingly Large (OWL) telescopes is dependent on many climatological and meteorological parameters. Among these are cloud cover, atmospheric humidity, aerosol content, air temperature, airflow direction, strength and turbulence. Even relatively minor changes in weather patterns can have a significant effect on seeing conditions. A...

Université de Fribourg

Climate-based site selection for a very large telescope using GIS techniques

Graham, Edward ; Sarazin, Marc S. ; Beniston, Martin ; Collet, Claude ; Hayoz, Michael ; Neun, Moritz ; Casals, Paula

In: Meteorological Applications, 2005, vol. 12, p. 77

Astronomical research at present requires that a telescope with an aperture diameter of between 50 and 100 metres be constructed within the next 10 years or so. This new generation of telescopes will be called OWL (Overwhelmingly Large), and it represents one order of magnitude increase in size over today's telescopes. Selection of an ideal site for this giant telescope is dependent on many...