Help with Go Observing

Go Observing is at the centre of The Schools' Observatory. It helps you request observations, track their progress, and download your data when it is ready.

A lot happens "behind the scenes" to make this work smoothly.

This page explains how the system works. It will help you understand enough to use it with confidence:

What does Go Observing do?

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Credit

This work by Liverpool Telescope is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International

Go Observing helps you take images using professional telescopes. It makes the process easier, so you do not get lost in the details.

Using a professional telescope usually involves many steps. You need to choose an object, select an instrument, pick a filter, and decide on an exposure time. You then submit the request to a telescope.

Go Observing hides unnecessary details and keeps the most important choices. The system is flexible, because different users want to do different things.

The system can also adapt to the user. It changes based on age and experience level and guides you through a set of questions and simple choices.

The aim is to give you good options to choose from. This helps avoid disappointment caused by unsuitable objects, filters, or exposure times.

Once you make your choices, Go Observing does the rest. It creates a request the telescope can understand, sends it, monitors progress, and keeps you updated.

How long will my observations take?

The time you wait depends on several factors.

Some factors are predictable. These include how long an object is visible, the Moon’s phase, or the position of planets and moons.

Go Observing uses this information to calculate the “visibility” colour bars you see when choosing an object.

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Credit

This work by The Schools' Observatory is licensed under All rights reserved

Other factors are not predictable. Weather is the main one.

When conditions are good, observations with “excellent” or “good” chances of being observed are often taken the same night. Because the telescopes are spread around the world, you may not need to wait until it is dark where you live. If it is daytime for you, a telescope elsewhere may still be able to observe.

Some nights are busier than others. In these cases, you may need to wait one or two nights.

The size of the telescope also matters. There are many more 1-metre and 0.4-metre telescopes on the Las Cumbres Observatory network, so requests sent to these are often completed more quickly than on our 2-metre telescopes.

We monitor how long observations take and make small changes to keep the system running efficiently.

Are there any backups if my observation is not done in time?

Yes. All observations taken since the project began in 2004 are available from our Archive.

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Credit

This work by The Schools' Observatory is licensed under All rights reserved

For about three months after an observation is taken, only the person who requested it can access the data. After that, the data becomes available to all registered users.

You can search the archive in different ways, such as by object name or by the observing programme. There is also an “Advanced Search Form” for more detailed searches.

If your observation is delayed, or if you want data quickly for a lesson or for exploration, the archive is a useful resource.

Are there any limits to the number of requests?

No, there are no strict limits to the number of requests you can make. This works for two main reasons:

1. The Go Observing system is not wholly open. This means there is an automatic limit to the total number of requests that can be made for one night (although this limit is very high).
2. If identical requests are made by more than one user at the same time, only one observation is taken and shared. This is never done retrospectively. If you request Jupiter a few minutes after an observation was taken, a new observation will be taken for you.

This is similar to how professional observing works and helps reduce waiting times. It is much quicker to take one observation of Saturn and share it than to take 50 separate observations.

Can I choose to observe anything?

Not quite. Observing is complex, and it is easy to make choices that lead to poor results. For this reason, we limit the list of objects to those we know can give sensible results.

For example, many people want to observe the Andromeda Galaxy. However, it is much bigger than the field of view of most telescope instruments. Using the Liverpool Telescope as an example, Andromeda is thousands of times larger than the field of view of the main camera.

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This work by Sloan Digital Sky Survey/The Schools' Observatory is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

We have narrowed a database of over 20,000 galaxies down to a few hundred that we know will create good results. From these, Go Observing selects a small set that are best for the current time and conditions.

We also change and add new objects over time, so the choices continue to evolve.

This helps make sure people are not disappointed with their observations, which can be discouraging. However, it can also mean your favourite object is not on the list.

If you have a special request or want to suggest a new object, please email us at SchoolsObs@ljmu.ac.uk and we can see if it is possible.

Does everybody have the same choices?

Not quite. A strength of Go Observing is that it can adjust to different users. A primary school child usually has different interests than a post-16 physics student.

Teacher accounts also see a wider range of observing programmes than student accounts. This means teachers can let students work independently without being overwhelmed by too many choices.

Teachers can set up entire class sets of usernames using the Create Students tools in the “My Account” menu.

Why can't I find one of my old observations?

You can view your list of observations using My Observations. Observations over a year old are removed from this list to stop it getting too long.

However, you can still find old observations using the Archive.

Is there an easy way to make the same observation again?

This can be useful if a request was unsuccessful.

1. Log in to your account.
2. Choose ‘My Observations’ in the Go Observing menu.
3. In the ‘Actions’ column, click the resubmit arrow ( ) for the observation you want to repeat.

Can I delete an observation request?

1. Log in to your account.
2. Choose ‘My Observations’ in the Go Observing menu.
3. In the ‘Actions’ column, click the bin icon ( ) for the observation you want to delete.