Mr. Wilfred T. Gee Profile

Wilfred T. Gee

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Publications (6)

SPIE Journal Paper | 8 October 2021

On-sky demonstration of precision photometry with Bayer color filter arrays

Wilfred Gee, Olivier Guyon, Nemanja Jovanovic, Christian Schwab, David Coutts, Josh Walawender, Aru Mukherjea

JATIS, Vol. 7, Issue 04, 048001, (October 2021) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.10.1117/1.JATIS.7.4.048001

KEYWORDS: Stars, Photometry, Detection and tracking algorithms, Optical filters, RGB color model, Exoplanets, Cameras, Sensors, Astronomy, Calibration

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Proceedings Article | 13 December 2020 Presentation + Paper

PANOPTES: A citizen science project to discover exoplanets from your backyard using off-the-shelf hardware

Preethi Krishnamoorthy, Josh Walawender, Wilfred Tyler Gee, Olivier Guyon

Proceedings Volume 11445, 114452J (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2563188

KEYWORDS: Exoplanets, Astronomy, Observatories, Robots

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Proceedings Article | 3 January 2020 Paper

The Huntsman Telescope: lessons learned from building an autonomous telescope from COTS components

Anthony Horton, Lee Spitler, Wilfred Gee, Fergus Longbottom, Jaime Alvarado-Montes, Amir Bazkiaei, Sarah Caddy, Steven Lee

Proceedings Volume 11203, 1120306 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2539579

KEYWORDS: Telescopes, Commercial off the shelf technology, Observatories, Lenses, Astronomical telescopes, Astronomy, CCD cameras, Computer aided design, Exoplanets, Imaging arrays

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Proceedings Article | 10 July 2018 Presentation

Project PANOPTES: the good, the bad, and the ugly challenges of running a successful Pro-Am astronomy project (Conference Presentation)

Wilfred Gee, Christian Schwab, David Coutts, Olivier Guyon, Josh Walawender

Proceedings Volume 10707, 1070702 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2314317

KEYWORDS: Astronomy, Cameras, Software development, Exoplanets, Lenses, Data analysis, Observatories, Clouds

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PANOPTES is a citizen-science based project to discover exoplanets with consumer cameras. It is open source and aims to be highly efficient at collecting photometric data by running a wide field survey using DSLR cameras and standard lenses. In the two years since the demonstration of the baseline design at SPIE 2016 the project has moved forward in getting the hardware design ready for citizen scientists and data analysis, benefiting from an influx of both professional and amateur support. At the same time the project has experienced a number of challenges related to the nature of a grassroots project with no specific institutional home. Here we present a status update to the project with a focus on the issues associated with creating, and maintaining, a successful “pro-am” astronomy project. This talk will specifically focus on a couple of keys concepts related to the operation of PANOPTES as a distributed observatory built by a collection of professional and amateur astronomers. These concepts can largely be broken down as: software; hardware; and organizational. However, a central theme of the talk will also be the fact that PANOPTES operates without a centralized institution, which means that decisions related to software and hardware are necessarily tied into the organizational decisions. Likewise, since the project has no official operating budget but operates largely off the budgets of each individual team (in addition to a NASA/JPL grant, the attainment of which will also be discussed), the hardware decisions and the evolving landscape of commercial over-the-counter (COTC) hardware play a significant role in the operation and maintenance of the project as a whole, which in turn affects how the software is developed. Through all of these areas PANOPTES has experienced successes and failures as well as simple deviations from original plans. As a project we have benefited enormously from the donation of time and storage on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), allowing us to explore technologies and solutions that would otherwise be unfeasible, but as an unofficial project we have been unable to secure a permanent formal agreement with GCP, creating challenges related to the long-term viability of those software solutions. Being a unique project that aims to be as scientifically productive as it is successful as an outreach tool, it is hoped that the talk will provide some valuable learned lessons for any future projects that hope to utilize the unique professional-amateur dynamic that exists within the field of astronomy and open-source software.

Proceedings Article | 9 August 2016 Paper

Project PANOPTES: a citizen-scientist exoplanet transit survey using commercial digital cameras

Wilfred Gee, Olivier Guyon, Josh Walawender, Nemanja Jovanovic, Luc Boucher

Proceedings Volume 9908, 99085V (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2234461

KEYWORDS: Exoplanets, Digital cameras, Astronomy, Cameras, Planets, Astronomy, Stars, Observatories, Electroluminescent displays, Photometry, Electronics

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Proceedings Article | 22 July 2014 Paper

The PANOPTES project: discovering exoplanets with low-cost digital cameras

Olivier Guyon, Josh Walawender, Nemanja Jovanovic, Mike Butterfield, Wilfred Gee, Rawad Mery

Proceedings Volume 9145, 91453V (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2057288

KEYWORDS: Cameras, Exoplanets, Prototyping, Algorithm development, Observatories, Sensors, Stars, Photometry, Digital cameras, Telescopes

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