A robotic telescope is an astronomical

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

 and detector system that makes observation

Observation

Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...

s without the intervention of a human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

. In astronomical disciplines, a telescope qualifies as robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

ic if it makes those observations without being operated by a human, even if a human has to initiate the observations at the beginning of the night, or end them in the morning. A robotic telescope is distinct from a remote telescope, though an instrument can be both robotic and remote.

Design

Robotic telescopes are complex systems that typically incorporate a number of subsystems. These subsystems include devices that provide telescope pointing capability, operation of the detector (typically a CCD

Charge-coupled device

A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time...

 camera), control of the dome or telescope enclosure, control over the telescope's focuser

Focus (optics)

In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle. This non-ideal focusing may be caused by...

, detection of weather

Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...

 conditions, and other capabilities. Frequently these varying subsystems are presided over by a master control system, which is almost always a software component.

Robotic telescopes operate under closed loop or open loop

Open-loop controller

An open-loop controller, also called a non-feedback controller, is a type of controller that computes its input into a system using only the current state and its model of the system....

 principles. In an open loop system, a robotic telescope system points itself and collects its data without inspecting the results of its operations to ensure it is operating properly. An open loop telescope is sometimes said to be operating on faith, in that if something goes wrong, there is no way for the control system to detect it and compensate.

A closed loop system has the capability to evaluate its operations through redundant inputs to detect errors. A common such input would be position encoders on the telescope's axes of motion, or the capability of evaluating the system's images to ensure it was pointed at the correct field of view

Field of view

The field of view is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment....

 when they were exposed.

Most robotic telescopes are small telescope

Small telescope

A small telescope is generally considered by professional astronomers to be any reflector type telescope with a primary mirror of less than 2 metres diameter...

s. While large observatory instruments may be highly automated, few are operated without attendants.

History of professional robotic telescopes

Robotic telescopes were first developed by astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

s after electromechanical interfaces to computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

s became common at observatories

Observatory

An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed...

. Early examples were expensive, had limited capabilities, and included a large number of unique subsystems, both in hardware and software. This contributed to a lack of progress in the development of robotic telescopes early in their history.

By the early 1980s, with the availability of cheap computers, several viable robotic telescope projects were conceived, and a few were developed. The 1985 book, Microcomputer Control of Telescopes, by Mark Trueblood and Russell M. Genet, was a landmark engineering study in the field. One of this book's achievements was pointing out many reasons, some quite subtle, why telescopes could not be reliably pointed using only basic astronomical calculations. The concepts explored in this book share a common heritage with the telescope mount error modeling software called Tpoint

Tpoint

TPoint is computer software that implements a mathematical model of conditions leading to errors in telescope pointing and tracking. The model can then be used in a telescope control system to correct the pointing and tracking. Such errors are typically caused by mechanical or structural defects...

, which emerged from the first generation of large automated telescopes in the 1970s, notably the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope.

Since the late 1980s, the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 has been in the forefront of robotic telescope development on the professional side. The Automated Telescope Facility (ATF), developed in the early 1990s, was located on the roof of the physics building at the University of Iowa in Iowa City

Iowa City, Iowa

Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, State of Iowa. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of about 67,862, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and home to the University of Iowa...

. They went on to complete the Iowa Robotic Observatory, a robotic and remote telescope at the private Winer Observatory

Winer Observatory

Winer Observatory is an astronomical observatory near Sonoita, Arizona in the United States. It is a private, non-profit observatory, operated by Mark Trueblood since 1983. It has been the site of a number of significant small telescopes and famous robotic telescopes. It has been the site of the...

 in 1997. This system successfully observed variable star

Variable star

A star is classified as variable if its apparent magnitude as seen from Earth changes over time, whether the changes are due to variations in the star's actual luminosity, or to variations in the amount of the star's light that is blocked from reaching Earth...

s and contributed observations to dozens of scientific papers. In May 2002, they completed the Rigel Telescope. The Rigel was a 0.37-meter (14.5-inch) F/14 built by Optical Mechanics, Inc.

Optical Mechanics, Inc.

Optical Mechanics, Inc. or OMI is a high-end American telescope and optics instrument manufacturer. OMI was founded in 2002 and produces observatory telescopes, Lidar telescopes, optical tube assemblies, telescope mirrors and reflective coatings for mirrors. OMI mirrors are used by other telescope...

 and controlled by the Talon program. Each of these was a progression toward a more automated and utilitarian observatory.

One of the largest current networks of robotic telescopes is RoboNet

RoboNet

RoboNet-1.0 was a prototype global network of UK-built 2-metre robotic telescopes, the largest of their kind in the world, comprising the Liverpool Telescope on La Palma , the Faulkes Telescope North on Maui , and the Faulkes Telescope South in Australia, managed by a consortium of ten UK...

, operated by a consortium of UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 universities. The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research

Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research

The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project is a cooperative project between the United States Air Force, NASA, and MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for the systematic discovery and tracking of near-Earth asteroids. LINEAR was responsible for the majority of asteroid detections since 1998 until...

 (LINEAR) Project is another example of a professional robotic telescope. LINEAR's competitors, the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search

Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search

Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search ' was a project designed to discover asteroids and comets that orbit near the Earth. The project, funded by NASA, was directed by Dr. Ted Bowell of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona...

, Catalina Sky Survey

Catalina Sky Survey

Catalina Sky Survey is a project to discover comets and asteroids, and to search for Near-Earth objects. More specifically, to search for potentially hazardous asteroids , that may pose a threat of impact.-Mission:...

, Spacewatch

Spacewatch

Spacewatch is a project at the University of Arizona led by Robert S. McMillan that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets...

, and others, have also developed varying levels of automation.

In 2002, the RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) project pushed the envelope of automated robotic astronomy by becoming the first fully autonomous closed–loop robotic telescope. RAPTOR was designed in 2000 and began full deployment in 2002. Its first light on one of the wide field instruments was in late 2001, with the second wide field system coming online in early 2002. Closed loop operations began in 2002. Originally the goal of RAPTOR was to develop a system of ground-based telescopes that would reliably respond to satellite triggers and more importantly, identify transients in real-time and generate alerts with source locations to enable follow-up observations with other, larger, telescopes. It has achieved both of these goals quite successfully. Now RAPTOR has been re-tuned to be the key hardware element of the Thinking Telescopes Technologies Project. Its new mandate will be the monitoring of the night sky looking for interesting and anomalous behaviors in persistent sources using some of the most advanced robotic software ever deployed. The two wide field systems are a mosaic of CCD cameras. The mosaic covers and area of approximately 1500 square degrees to a depth of 12th magnitude. Centered in each wide field array is a single fovea system with a field of view of 4 degrees and depth of 16th magnitude. The wide field systems are separated by a 38km baseline. Supporting these wide field systems are two other operational telescopes. The first of these is a cataloging patrol instrument with a mosaic 16 square degree field of view down to 16 magnitude. The other system is a .4m OTA with a yielding a depth of 19-20th magnitude and a coverage of .35 degrees. Three additional systems are currently undergoing development and testing and deployment will be staged over the next two years. All of the systems are mounted on custom manufactured, fast-slewing mounts capable of reaching any point in the sky in 3 seconds. The RAPTOR System is located on site at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) and has been supported through the Laboratory's Directed Research and Development funds.

In 2004, some professional robotic telescopes were characterized by a lack of design creativity and a reliance on closed source and proprietary software

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

. The software is usually unique to the telescope it was designed for and cannot be used on any other system. Often, robotic telescope software developed at universities becomes impossible to maintain and ultimately obsolete

Obsolescence

Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service or practice is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order. Obsolescence frequently occurs because a replacement has become available that is superior in one or more aspects. Obsolete refers to something...

 because the graduate students who wrote it move on to new positions, and their institutions lose their knowledge. Large telescope consortia or government funded laboratories don't tend to have this same loss of developers as experienced by universities. Professional systems generally feature very high observing efficiency and reliability. There is also an increasing tendency to adopt ASCOM technology at a few professional facilities (see following section). The need for proprietary software is usually driven by the competition for research dollars between institutions.

History of amateur robotic telescopes

In 2004, most robotic telescopes are in the hands of amateur astronomers

Amateur astronomy

Amateur astronomy, also called backyard astronomy and stargazing, is a hobby whose participants enjoy watching the night sky , and the plethora of objects found in it, mainly with portable telescopes and binoculars...

. A prerequisite for the explosion of amateur robotic telescopes was the availability of relatively inexpensive CCD cameras, which appeared on the commercial market in the early 1990s. These cameras not only allowed amateur astronomers to make pleasing images of the night sky, but also encouraged more sophisticated amateurs to pursue research projects in cooperation with professional astronomers. The main motive behind the development of amateur robotic telescopes has been the tedium of making research-oriented astronomical observations, such as taking endlessly repetitive images of a variable star.

In 1998, Bob Denny

Bob Denny

Bob Denny is an American software developer who writes software for robotic telescope and remote telescope systems. He is the inventor of the Astronomy Common Object Model standard, which has resulted in the easy availability of freeware device drivers for telescopes, telescope focusers, and...

 conceived of a software interface standard for astronomical equipment, based on Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

's Component Object Model

Component Object Model

Component Object Model is a binary-interface standard for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable interprocess communication and dynamic object creation in a large range of programming languages...

, which he called the Astronomy Common Object Model (ASCOM). He also wrote and published the first examples of this standard, in the form of commercial telescope control and image analysis programs, and several freeware components. He also convinced Doug George

Doug George

Doug George is a NASCAR driver and mechanic. Currently, he is the crew chief of the #51 NOS/Miccosukee Gambling Toyota Tundra driven by Kyle Busch and Brian Ickler in the Craftsman Truck Series. He has made a total of 58 starts in NASCAR.He began racing professionally in the 1980s, driving for his...

 to incorporate ASCOM capability into a commercial camera control software program. Through this technology, a master control system that integrated these applications could easily be written in perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

, VBScript

VBScript

VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...

, or JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

. A sample script of that nature was provided by Denny.

Following coverage of ASCOM in Sky & Telescope

Sky & Telescope

Sky & Telescope is a monthly American magazine covering all aspects of amateur astronomy, including the following:*current events in astronomy and space exploration;*events in the amateur astronomy community;...

magazine several months later, ASCOM architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s such as Bob Denny, Doug George, Tim Long

Tim Long

Tim Long is a comedy writer born in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Tim calls Exeter, Ontario, Canada his home town and has written for The Simpsons, Politically Incorrect, Spy Magazine and The Late Show with David Letterman. Currently credited as a consulting producer on The Simpsons, Long was - until...

, and others later influenced ASCOM into becoming a set of codified interface standards for freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

 device driver

Device driver

In computing, a device driver or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a hardware device....

s for telescopes, CCD cameras, telescope focusers, and astronomical observatory domes. As a result amateur robotic telescopes have become increasingly more sophisticated and reliable, while software costs have plunged. ASCOM has also been adopted for some professional robotic telescopes.

Meanwhile, ASCOM users designed ever more capable master control systems. Papers presented at the Minor Planet Amateur-Professional Workshops (MPAPW) in 1999, 2000, and 2001 and the International Amateur-Professional Photoelectric Photometry Conferences of 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 documented increasingly sophisticated master control systems. Some of the capabilities of these systems included automatic selection of observing targets, the ability to interrupt observing or rearrange observing schedules for targets of opportunity, automatic selection of guide stars, and sophisticated error detection and correction algorithms.

Remote telescope system development started in 1999, with first test runs on real telescope hardware in early 2000. RTS2 was primary intended for Gamma ray burst

Gamma ray burst

Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical...

 follow-up observations, so ability to interrupt observation was core part of its design. During development, it became an integrated observatory management suite. Other additions included use of the Postgresql

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...

 database for storing targets and observation logs, ability to perform image processing including astrometry and performance of the real-time telescope corrections and a web-based user interface. RTS2 was from the beginning designed as a completely open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 system, without any proprietary components. In order to support growing list of mounts, sensors, CCDs and roof systems, it uses own, text based communication protocol. The RTS2 system is described in papers appearing in 2004 and 2006.

The Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface

Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface

INDI is a Distributed Control System protocol to enable control, data acquisition and exchange among hardware devices and software front ends, with particular focus on astronomical instrumentation.-Introduction:Elwood Downey started the INDI Protocol initiative in 2003 to develop a platform and...

 (INDI) was started in 2003. In comparison to the Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 centric ASCOM standard, INDI is a platform independent protocol developed by Elwood C. Downey of ClearSky Institute to support control, automation, data acquisition, and exchange among hardware devices and software frontends.

Significance

By 2004, robotic observations accounted for an overwhelming percentage of the published scientific information on asteroid orbit

Orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...

s and discoveries, variable star studies, supernova

Supernova

A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...

 light curve

Light curve

In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region, as a function of time. The light is usually in a particular frequency interval or band...

s and discoveries, comet orbits and gravitational microlensing

Gravitational lens

A gravitational lens refers to a distribution of matter between a distant source and an observer, that is capable of bending the light from the source, as it travels towards the observer...

 observations.

All early phase Gamma ray burst

Gamma ray burst

Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical...

 observations were carried by robotic telescopes.

See also

• List of telescope types
• Remote Telescope Markup Language
  Remote Telescope Markup Language
  The Remote Telescope Markup Language is an XML dialect for controlling remote and/or robotic telescopes.It was created by UC Berkeley's Hands-On Universe project in 1999.-External links:* http://hou.lbl.gov/rtml/...
  
  

External links

• List of professional robotic telescopes (with map and statistics).
• Robotic telescopes: An interactive exhibit on the world-wide web provides an overview of telescope operation through the internet