Mount Kent Observatory

Mount Kent Observatory is the second largest optical observatory in Australia, and Queensland's only professional observatory.

Mt Kent Observatory, operated by the University of Southern Queensland, operates a series of 0.1 to 0.8m telescopes for research and outreach.

We are in the process of making the following facilities available to the wider community via remote and robotic observing. Please contact Prof Duncan Wright for more information.

Outreach and Teaching

The 0.1 and 0.8m telescopes are available for remote imaging observations for teaching and outreach opportunities.

Example images from the 0.8m telescope allows for multi-band imaging via a ZWO ASI6200MC-Pro monochromatic camera, with a filter wheel, that allows students to construct colour images.

The 0.1m telescope has a ZWO ASI183MC colour camera that allows for single-shot colour images, readily accessible to most observers.

NGC 253 (0.8m)

NGC 5128 (0.8m)

Artemis II (0.8m)

NGC 253 (0.8m)

Research

Spectroscopy

The five telescopes feed into a single Kiwispec spectrograph with resolution of R~80,000 over the 480-610nm. Spectra are extracted from the four traces independently. Radial velocities are derived from each telescope independently. Simultaneous relative wavelength offset is tracked via a flat lamp exposure that is passed through an Iodine cell.

Data products include 1-D flux calibrated spectra and extracted radial velocities. An example spectrum of the bright star Tau Ceti is shown below.

Radial Velocity Precision: The demonstrated real-world RV precision floor at the months timescale for a slowly rotating star is

Tau Ceti: 2m/s

V<8: 6m/s

V=10.5: 25m/s

V=12: 60m/s

The figure on the right shows the measured RV curve of TOI-481 b (Brahm et al. 2020), a hot Jupiter around a V=10 G dwarf.

Photometry of Earth-sized planets

The Minerva-Australis array is well suited to performing precise photometric transit follow-up observations rivalling the best observatories. With all telescopes of the array operating together, sub-mmag level photometry can be achieved on most TESS targets. The telescopes are widely separated to average over scintillation, and the systematics are independent of each other.

See left for a very shallow and difficult transit of the Earth-sized planet GJ1132, detected at the 1 part per thousand level.

Variable star photometry is also readily accessible via the 0.8m. The left figure shows pulsations from a white dwarf at the 20 minute timescale, suitable as a live demo of stellar oscillations to students during observing nights.

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