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Report
of The First Public Test of
Phoenix
Live Broadcasting
from K1
Observatory
Transit of Mercury
May 7, 2003
By: Mohammad
Akoochekian
End of an Action or Flying to
Future?
After TIE, eStar, Schools
Observatory, ETC; the Live Astronomy Programs; two HRC departments
(Astronomy and IT Dept.) in joint project, established a live astronomy program
called Phoenix. In this program, observers, astronomers, researchers, students
and
others can connect to Internet or HRC K1 observatory main server to live
observation and CCD photography by direct telescope controlling.
Then in the first public test of
Phoenix, We showed the transit of Mercury, completely live . Visitors
could observe the sky of Iran with travel of Mercury over the Sun. About 5000
individuals around the world, look at the sky by the Phoenix eyes. Some of them
sent emails and wrote us about their suggestions, problems, ideas, ... . We had
120 emails from Iran, USA, Jordan, UK, Japan, Taiwan, France, Belgium, ..., For
example Alberto Urcelay:
" OK friends. That is a nice experience for you because I have been comparing your displays with those from England and yours are just fine. Anyway thank you for your views and again congratulations. I can tell you that I am a 60 year old person with a degree in Physics from Mexico City, so all this is great for me.
...
I am in San Antonio, Texas USA.
Congratulations! "
 As
we controlled the system activities, we answered the emails. This first test was
very hard for us, because of great number of visitors. In some places, for
example in Isfahan University of Technology, many of students were collected in
a hall and looked at pictures which had being shown on long screen by video projector.
Any way, our test results was
suitable but there were some problems:
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Data transfer rate was slow, the
time between capturing pictures and showing on web was about 15 seconds.
-
Wind was blowing very fast and
caused problems.
-
Telephone line was not digital, so
disconnected some times.
-
Some times we lost the Mercury on
screen, because of large zoom in telescope.
This program wasn't really Phoenix
purpose, Phoenix
is a program for direct communication between
K1 observatory and users to
 control the k1
telescope and take CCD photos.
The HRC members who, established
this live broadcasting were: Dr. Mohammad Rafienia (manager of HRC
Astronomy Dept.) and Mohammad Akoochekian (HRC president). Davood Pooladsaz
(Phoenix manager) was manager of live Phoenix in Isfahan university of
technology. About 10 website (according to our information) introduced our program to their visitors, most
important of them are:
Among our activities in K1, Mr.
Niknam chief master of ShirinNam trading company (sponsor of Phoenix) came
to observatory and saw the program and said his ideas to improve the Phoenix.
Now, after this successful
experience, we will wait for transit of Venus at May 2004. That will be more important
for us. Venus is bigger than Mercury, so the transit will be more beautiful and
interesting to look at.
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