Status
The project had 3 main objectives with their corresponding milestones:
- The set-up of the Remote Observing Center (ROC) (Status: completed December 2011. ROC tested and validated in both observing and videoconference calls for over 200 hours)
- Remote observing of asteroids from ROC (Status: original milestone of 10 observed asteroids already exceeded in January 2013. Project's observations ended with a run in June 2013. 21 hours of observations were awarded to project's team in a peer-reviewed research proposals competition. A total of 20 asteroids where observed in the first 2 years of the project.)
- Publication of articles with a total Impact Factor (IF) > 6 (Status: completed. Two article with IF=5.084 and IF=5.521 published. Two new refereed articles with IF=5.084 acknowledging the Remote Observing Center published in 2014.)
Our projects established some very important firsts in the field of romanian observational astronomy:
- first remote-observations conducted from Romania
- the largest telescope operated remotely by Romania-based astronomers (3m NASA IRTF telescope from Hawaii)
- the furthest astronomical facility operated remotely (13,000 km away)
Project's final report is available in romanian and english.