Robotic telescope Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A robotic telescope is an astronomical telescope and detector system that makes observations without the intervention of a human. In astronomical disciplines, a telescope qualifies as robotic 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.
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 camera), control of the dome or telescope enclosure, control over the telescope's focuser, detection of weather 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 principles. In an open loop system, a robotic telescope system points itself and collects its data without inspecting the results of its operations to insure 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 insure it was pointed at the correct field of view when they were exposed.
Most robotic telescopes are small telescopes. While large observatory instruments may be highly automated, few are operated without attendants.
Robotic telescopes were first developed by astronomers after electromechanical interfaces to computers became common at observatories. 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 Russel M. Genet and Mark Trueblood, 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 later became fully articulated in the telescope mount error modeling software called Tpoint.
Since the late 1980s, the University of Iowa 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. They went on to complete the Iowa Robotic Observatory, a robotic and remote telescope at the private Winer Observatory in 1997. This system successfully observed variable stars and contributed observations to dozens of scientific papers. In May 2002, they completed the Rigel Telescope. Each of these was a progression toward a more automated and utilitarian observatory.
The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Project is another example of a professional robotic telescope. LINEAR's competitors, the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search, Catalina Sky Survey, Spacewatch, and others, have also developed varying levels of automation.
In 2004, professional robotic telescopes were characterized by a lack of design creativity and a reliance on closed source and proprietary software. The software is usually unique to the telescope it was designed for and cannot be used on any other system. Often, robotic telescope software becomes impossible to maintain and ultimately obsolete because the graduate students who wrote it move on to new positions, and their institutions lose their knowledge. On the other hand, professional systems generally feature very high observing efficiency and reliability. There is also an increasing tendency to adopt ASCOM technology at professional facilities (see following section).
In 2004, most robotic telescopes are in the hands of amateur astronomers. 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 conceived of a software interface standard for astronomical equipment, based on Microsoft's Component Object Model, 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 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, VBScript, or JavaScript. A sample script of that nature was provided by Denny.
Following coverage of ASCOM in Sky & Telescope; magazine several months later, ASCOM architects such as Bob Denny, Doug George, Tim Long, and others later influenced ASCOM into becoming a set of codified interface standards for freeware device drivers 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. None of these were features of any documented robotic telescope, professional or amateur, prior to 1999.
By 2004, robotic observations accounted for an overwhelming percentage of the published scientific information on asteroid orbits and discoveries, variable star studies, supernova light curves and discoveries, and comet orbits.
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History of professional robotic telescopes
History of amateur robotic telescopes
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