The Shadow Telescope


The Goals


The Shadow Telescope's purpose is to improve the precision of existing land-based and orbital telescopes at measuring the sizes of stars. Greater precision in the measure of star sizes will lead to greater precision in the measurement of planets circling stars. The primary focus is on stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The action is to construct and operate a visual occlusion target of known size and location between the object observed, and the observer.

The Filter Mask Blotting out light is not a new process in astronomy. To remove the affects of bright stars in the foreground, masks are created and inserted in the line of light that is entering the telescope allowing the light from dimmer stars to be visible.

The Shadow Telescope is unique in that it's purpose is not to blot out the whole star, but only a known, precise portion of the star. By subtracting of a known portion of light from the star, the size, distance, and mass ratios of the star can be calculated more accurately.

Proposed Mission: Epsilon Eridani

Background on Epsilon Eridani This telescope would directed at Epsilon Eridani 10.522 light years from Earth. It is one of the closest stars.

 “The motion of Epsilon Eridani along the line of sight to Earth, known as the radial velocity, has been regularly observed for more than twenty years. Periodic changes in this data yielded evidence of a giant planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, making it one of the nearest extrasolar systems with a candidate exoplanet.”

Operation

The Shadow Telescope (ST) would be situated directly between the telescope (earth) and the star being observed (star).




Proposed Design

In the center towards earth is a Parabolic Antenna. I've sized it to be the same as Mariner 4’s Antenna: 116.8 cm (1.2m) diameter high gain parabolic antenna. This will be in the center facing towards earth. The device would rotate around this axis. The center antenna size was approximated from diameter  for the purpose of communication.

The spinning instrument allows for several modes of operation. •The time pattern of brightness of the star &em; used to interpret the alignment in the line of sight of the device.
•Smaller or larger occlusion area &em; to support different sized star targets.
•Several slit sizes to permit &em; in addition to purposes from alignment, viewing very smaller areas of a star in a non-spinning mode, for example, during a planet transit.
A instrument on the ST provides an alignment between the two sides -- towards earth, and towards star -- and a means to help direct the ST directly between them.

Surrounding the parabolic antenna are adjustable louvers or slats that also act as solar collection panels. By adjusting the amount of the panel blocking the light path. In one mode of operation, the louvers are full photo-voltaic cells, and in another, non-reflective panels are presented to minimize the reflection from the sun onto the device.

The size of the device would be adjusted by the ideal candidate sighting. This is done by extending the slats and the louvers.

The ST may also have another mode of operation with a counterbalance on a tether. By spinning the counterbalance, the ST can act as a much larger instrument providing view block over a wider distance. For alignment purposes, the position of the ST can cause background stars, including the target star, to flash in-and-out of view. Coordinating the timing of the device and where in swing, the instrument can be more finely moved into position.


Candidate Stars and Occlusion at 1M KM


Star Designation 
Number of Plants
Estimated virtual diameter
(meters) with ST 
at 1M KM from Earth
LightyearsEstimated 
Sun 
Diameters
Kepler-20 2° G8: 5
1.024
 950 0.92
Kepler-70 1° sdB: 2 (1)
1.044
 3849 3.8
Kepler-186 43° M1V: 5
1.205
 500 0.57
HD 102272 14° K2III: 2
1.394
 796 1.05
Kepler-65 41° : 3
1.525
 804 1.16
HAT-P-13 47° G4: 2 (1)
1.575
 698 1.04
Kepler-10 50° G5V: 2
1.762
 564 0.94
NN Serpentis 12° WD+M: 2
1.871
 1593 2.82
Kepler-80 39°: 4 (1)
1.922
 1100 2
COROT-7 01° K0V: 2 (1)
1.924
 489 0.89
HD 47536 32° K1III: 2
1.946
 402 0.74
Kepler-42 44° M: 3
2.265
 126 0.27
Kepler-68 49° G: 3
2.474
 440 1.03
HD 16031 12° F2V: 2
2.862
 362 0.98
HD 73526 41° G6V: 2
3.062
 328 0.95
HAT-P-17 30° K0V: 2
3.081
 295 0.86
24 Sextantis 00° G5III
4.262
 253 1.02
Kepler-37 4° G: 4
4.277
 215 0.87

Relative Views

From Earth, with the shadow telescope at 1 million kilometers, the relative view of stars would look as follows:

Data Analysis

By knowing the view blocking area of the Shadow Telescope, and the distance, the ratios of size and diameter of the observed star can be better known.


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