What is TAD?

The TADs (TAD means “Telescopio Abierto Divulgación”, Outreach Open Telescope, and the “s” means Solar) is part of a system of two telescopes that can be controlled remotely. Everyone, using a simple internet connection, with the help of a simple web browser, can use this telescopes directly as if he were in front of them.
The two telescopes (TADs and TADn) are installed at the Observatorio del Teide (Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, in Tenerife), more specific, at -16°30’35 of Longitude and at +28°18’00 of Latitude, in a height of 2390 meters from sea level.

Currently the TAD consists of a two telescopes: a night one (TADn) and the solar one (TADs). Specifications can be seen below.

TADn

1. Main Tube. The equipment of the TADn is formed by a Catadioptric telescope of the Japanese firm Vixen model VMC260L, 260mm aperture and 3020mm focal length, f/11.6 focal ratio (f/7.1 with the focal reducer). The optical tube is complemented with a 7x50mm finder.
2. Mount. The mount that supports the tube and the rest of the instrument is a Losmandy German mount, the type equatorial model Titan. The mount is controlled with the additional system GEMINI II.
3. Instrumentation. For capturing images it has a CCD camera from the American firm SBIG model ST10 (2184×1472 pixels / 6.8 μ).
   The external finder is a Vixen 103mm ED apochromatic with low dispersion lenses to prevent light scattering problems, and has a focal length of 795mm.
   The main camera is complemented with a filter wheel SBIG CFW9-C with 5 position internal filter 1.25″. There are now three Johnson’s filters installed (V, R, I), a filter H-alpha and an empty hole to work without a filter.

TADs

1. Main Tube. The tube is from an American company, Lunt Solar Systems, has an aperture of 152 mm with a focal length of 900 mm and focal ratio f/6 with an internal Etalon filter centered on the H-alpha line (656 nm <0.65 Angstrom), which allows to observe in detail the solar photosphere. As imaging device, it has connected a CCD camera model DBK 41AU02.AS, with a Sony CCD sensor and a resolution of 1280×960 pixels, which works in color.
2. Mount. The mount that supports the main tube and the rest of the instruments is a Losmandy German equatorial type G11. The mount is controlled with the additional system GEMINI II.
3. Instrumentation. In the main tube, as imaging device, it has connected a CCD camera model DBK 41AU02.AS, with a Sony CCD sensor and a resolution of 1280×960 pixels, which works in color. As a finder, the TADs have a BORG telescope, model 77ED II with an aperture of 77 mm and 500 mm of focal. Has an apochromatic lens ED with a very low dispersion to prevent from scattering problems of the light. And imaging system in the finder, it has connected a camera model DMK 41AU02.AS  with very similar specifications as the DBK that is connected to the main tube, but in black and white.