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Software Bisque, Inc. (formerly named Computer Assist Services) is a corporation based in Golden, Colorado that develops robotics telescope mounts and accessories and publishes software used in astronomy. [1] It was founded in 1984 by current president and CEO, Stephen M. Bisque.
Bisque initially developed and marketed custom financial software and also sold a DOS-based astronomy program named TheSky . At that time, the company was based in Bisque's home in Golden, Colorado.
In 1990, Bisque hired his brothers Thomas, Daniel and Matthew. Together they ported TheSky for DOS to Windows 3.0. In 1992, TheSky for Windows was released. The product has been under continuous development since it was first released in the early 1980s; the current version is known as TheSkyX. [2]
Software Bisque has since developed and sold many astronomy-related products, including:
Amateurs have discovered over 500 new objects (including comets, minor planets, supernovas, and cataclysmic variable stars) using these products.[ citation needed ]
Stellarium is an open-source free-software planetarium, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2, available for Linux, Windows, and macOS. A port Stellarium called Stellarium Mobile is available for Android, iOS, and Symbian as a paid version, being developed by Noctua Software. All versions use OpenGL to render a realistic projection of the night sky in real time.
A telescope mount is a mechanical structure which supports a telescope. Telescope mounts are designed to support the mass of the telescope and allow for accurate pointing of the instrument. Many sorts of mounts have been developed over the years, with the majority of effort being put into systems that can track the motion of the fixed stars as the Earth rotates.
A robotic telescope is an astronomical telescope and detector system that makes observations without the intervention of a human. In astronomical disciplines, a telescope qualifies as robotic if it makes those observations without being operated by a human, even if a human has to initiate the observations at the beginning of the night, or end them in the morning. It may have software agent(s) using Artificial Intelligence that assist in various ways such as automatic scheduling. A robotic telescope is distinct from a remote telescope, though an instrument can be both robotic and remote.
TPoint is computer software that implements a mathematical model of conditions leading to errors in telescope pointing and tracking. The model can then be used in a telescope control system to correct the pointing and tracking. Such errors are typically caused by mechanical or structural defects. For example, TPoint can analyze and compensate for systematic errors such as polar misalignment, mechanical and optical non-orthogonality, lack of roundness in telescope mounting drive gears, as well as for flexure of the mounting caused by gravity.
An altazimuth or alt-azimuth mount is a simple two-axis mount for supporting and rotating an instrument about two perpendicular axes – one vertical and the other horizontal. Rotation about the vertical axis varies the azimuth of the pointing direction of the instrument. Rotation about the horizontal axis varies the altitude of the pointing direction.
The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility is a 3-meter (9.8 ft) telescope optimized for use in infrared astronomy and located at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. It was first built to support the Voyager missions and is now the US national facility for infrared astronomy, providing continued support to planetary, solar neighborhood, and deep space applications. The IRTF is operated by the University of Hawaii under a cooperative agreement with NASA. According to the IRTF's time allocation rules, at least 50% of the observing time is devoted to planetary science.
Celestron is a company based in Torrance, California, United States, that manufactures telescopes and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, and accessories manufactured by its parent company, the Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan.
ASCOM is an open initiative to provide a standard interface to a range of astronomy equipment including mounts, focusers and imaging devices in a Microsoft Windows environment.
TheSky is an astronomy application designed to be used for educational and observational purposes. TheSky provides an extensive feature set including the following:
The Norman Lockyer Observatory, the Lockyer Technology Centre, and the Planetarium, is a public access optical observatory 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Sidmouth, East Devon in South West England. It houses a number of historical optical telescopes, including the Lockyer Telescope, and is operated by Norman Lockyer Observatory Society (NLOS).
In amateur astronomy, "GoTo" refers to a type of telescope mount and related software that can automatically point a telescope at astronomical objects that the user selects. Both axes of a GoTo mount are driven by a motor and controlled by a computer. It may be either a microprocessor-based integrated controller or an external personal computer. This differs from the single-axis semi-automated tracking of a traditional clock-drive equatorial mount.
PROMPT, an acronym for Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes, is being built by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. PROMPT's primary objective is rapid and simultaneous multiwavelength observations of gamma-ray burst afterglows, some when they are only tens of seconds old. In addition to measuring redshifts by dropout, and early-time SFDs and extinction curves of sufficiently bright afterglows in unprecedented detail, PROMPT will facilitate quick response observations at larger observatories such as the UNC-led 4.1-m SOAR Telescope. PROMPT will also serve as a platform for undergraduate and high school education throughout the State of North Carolina.
Redshift is a family of educational planetarium and astronomy software packages which allow the user to observe the sky from a range of dates, print off data based on the observations, and control a telescope, created by Maris Multimedia. It runs on PC with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and iOS.
WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is an open-source set of applications, data and cloud services, originally created by Microsoft Research but now an open source project hosted on GitHub. The .NET Foundation holds the copyright and the project is managed by the American Astronomical Society and has been supported by grants from the Moore Foundation and National Science Foundation. WWT displays astronomical, earth and planetary data allowing visual navigation through the 3-dimensional (3D) Universe. Users are able to navigate the sky by panning and zooming, or explore the 3D universe from the surface of Earth to past the Cosmic microwave background (CMB), viewing both visual imagery and scientific data about that area and the objects in it. Data is curated from hundreds of different data sources, but its open data nature allows users to explore any third party data that conforms to a WWT supported format. With the rich source of multi-spectral all-sky images it is possible to view the sky in many wavelengths of light. The software utilizes Microsoft's Visual Experience Engine technologies to function. WWT can also be used to visualize arbitrary or abstract data sets and time series data.
J A Jones Hoober Observatory is a privately owned observatory located in South Yorkshire, England near to the villages of Hoober and Wentworth, 4 miles (6.4 km) North-northwest of Rotherham. It can be found about 300 metres (0.19 mi) east of Hoober Stand. The observatory is owned and operated by Mexborough & Swinton Astronomical Society (NPO).
An autoguider is an automatic electronic guidance tool used in astronomy to keep a telescope pointed precisely at an object being observed. This prevents the object from drifting across the field of view during long-exposures which would create a blurred or elongated image.
DFM Engineering is an American telescope and optics manufacturer founded in 1979 by Frank Melsheimer in Longmont, Colorado. DFM makes medium size Cassegrain telescopes and their associated systems including telescope optics, control systems, and mounts. A range of pre-designed telescopes are made, as are various custom installations. DFM produces its classical Cassegrain design in various apertures from 16 inches (0.4 m) to 50 inches (1.3 m) and larger. The base DFM 16-inch (40 cm) telescope system cost roughly 94 thousand USD in 2005.
LightBuckets is a commercial astronomical observatory formerly located in Rodeo, New Mexico and now located in France, which rents time on its telescopes to customers around the world via a website on the Internet, including amateur and professional astronomers. It is an online astronomy platform with live-views, and hosts an image gallery of astronomy images. Recognized scientific uses include the confirmation of supernova and discovery of asteroids.
Skyglobe is an astronomy program for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows first developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and originally sold as Shareware but now available as closed-source freeware. It plots the positions of stars, Messier objects, planets, sun and moon.
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope is an astronomical observation system formed by two robotic telescopes that are conducting a survey for transiting exoplanets around bright stars. The project is jointly administered by members of The Ohio State University Department of Astronomy, the Vanderbilt University Department of Physics and Astronomy Astronomy Group, the Lehigh University Department of Physics, and the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).