Alcor Micro Cyclope

Alcor Micro Cyclope

Turbulence level (or seeing) is a great concern when recording images of objects the sky, because this is simply jeopardizing astronomical telescope resolution. Recording images during best seeing is really a big advantage. In order to achieve this goal, continuous seeing measurement is required to optimize image recording time. To get seeing / turbulence measurements, the DIMM method is mostly used by professionnal observatories in order to measure atmospheric seeing (or turbulence) and allowing to optimize targets and observation programs. 

Nevertheless, DIMM method requires a telescope with enough focal length (>3000mm) and enough aperture (>250mm), and to track bright stars the whole night. This is quite stringent and can be a quite costly approach. The telescope needs a shelter, and automatically jump from a star to another to get not so far away from zenith.

ALCOR-SYSTEM provides a method to overcome some of the drawbacks of the DIMM system.

In the northern hemisphere, a bright star called "polaris" that does not move so much in the sky and is bright enough.

The fixed seeing monitor uses the Polaris star, and ALCOR-SYSTEM is proud to present this new product : micro-CYCLOPE seeing monitor

The goal of this product is to measure atmospheric seeing condition in a continuous fashion, so this setup stays outdoor all the time 24h a day, and is aimed at the polaris star in a fixed fashion.

This system can only work in the northern hemisphere, at latitudes above 15° North, for southern hemisphere please contact us for solutions.

The fixed seeing monitor is a totally sealed system that can overcome all extreme weather conditions, and is not sensitive to wind gust due to its strong design. The software starts measurements automatically when the Sun is below the horizon and only when the stars are visible.

This system offers watertight connectors, for continuous outdoor operation.

The line of sight can be adjusted accurately to aim at polaris star. Once this is performed, there is no need to carry out any further adjustements. The system is made of high quality alloy colorless anodized aluminum.