The Europlanet Telescope Network – Small-Scale Facilities Lead to Large-Scale Successes
As the Europlanet Telescope Network celebrates its fourth birthday, Gražina Tautvaišienė (Vilnius University, Lithuania), Guenter Kargl (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria) and Anita Heward (University of Kent, UK) reflect on its achievements to date.
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In parallel to space missions and big ground-based observatories, relatively small telescopes can provide observations that are, increasingly, important for planetary sciences and for the characterisation of exoplanets.
Studying planets, asteroids or comets can often require either long-term monitoring or precise timing, and this may necessitate collaboration between facilities in different locations around the globe. A network of small telescope facilities, supplemented by observations by the amateur astronomy community, is ideally suited to meet these needs. Moreover, such a network of telescopes and observers can also react relatively fast in response to alerts of phenomena of interest to the planetary community.
The Europlanet Telescope Network was established in 2020 to fill this niche. It is the first network of its kind worldwide that combines a diverse set of small-scale observational facilities, in Europe and beyond, to support planetary sciences. The network initially comprised 15 telescopes, and two more facilities have subsequently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to join the group. Through partnerships, including with the Faulkes Telescope Project, the network currently provides access to 46 professional telescopes and is open to new facilities joining.
Through a rolling-call for applications that ran from June 2020 to December 2023, 52 proposals for observing time were submitted. From 335.5 nights requested, the Europlanet Telescope Network’s Scientific Advisory Panel awarded 256.5 nights on 11 telescopes and provided travel-support for visits to five observatories. Observers from 11 countries were awarded the observing time, with successful applicants spanning three continents (Figure 1 below).
Of the successful projects, 10 have focused on asteroids, comets or Trans-Neptunian Objects, 27 have related to exoplanets or their host stars, and one observed lunar impact flashes during the Perseids meteor stream. Time has also been awarded to six non-planetary projects, covering diverse astronomical topics from a hunt for black holes to understanding protostar environments. To date, 19 papers published in peer-reviewed journals have credited the Europlanet Telescope Network.
Since the beginning, there was a clear indication that the network had great potential to attract amateur astronomers. Almost half the proposals submitted have been led by amateur astronomers, out of which 22 have been granted. In particular, the Europlanet Telescope Network has proved a valuable tool for community-based observation campaigns, such as the ExoClock project to monitor precise transits of exoplanets in support of the European Space Agency (ESA) mission, Ariel.
The Europlanet Telescope Network has also been successful in supporting diversity and inclusion in the planetary community, with applications from early career scientists, researchers from under-represented states and female researchers all having high success rates (Figure 1, overleaf).
Alongside coordination of the network, Europlanet 2024 RI has also supported 21 workshops and training sessions on a range of topics for professional and amateur astronomers. These have included a series of four workshops focused on fireball observations, a major outcome of which has been the initialisation of a common data format for fireball observation results. The agreement of many meteor networks in Europe and around the world to adopt this common format means that the exchange of fireball data is easier, which facilitates the finding of freshly-fallen meteorites.
The positive outcomes of the Europlanet Telescope Network are particularly notable given the challenging times of the past four years. The network was launched at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when only virtual access to telescopes was possible. Even after the lifting of travel restrictions, a significant number of proposals have continued to request remote observations, and it’s likely that this trend will continue. This has to be seen in a positive light, in that it reduces transport costs and the environmental impacts caused by travel.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also meant that the Lisnyky Observation Station, the Chuguev Observatory and the Terskol Peak Observatory in Ukraine are not currently accessible, and a further telescope in Russia has been suspended from the network.
Overall, the Europlanet Telescope Network has exceeded its targets and independent evaluation has demonstrated the initiative’s value to the community. As Europlanet moves into a new era of providing sustainable services to the community, the Telescope Network will remain at the heart of Europlanet’s activities, with a new call expected to be announced in the coming months.
The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) Project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
