Robotic Telescopes

Bremen, 03 22 2005

T. Granzer, AIP

Current Earth-bound projects

Why?Costs

Efficiency/speed

Constant data quality

(Arbitrary) long programs

Network:full phase coverageweather independent

Why not?

Troubleshooting

Software demands

Costs

Largest telescopes (VLT, Keck): ~100 M$

Hubble Space Telescope: ~6000 M$

Robotic telescope (1.5m): ~1 M$

AI replaces astronomer

Protect the instrument

Judge weather

Select targets

Operate instruments in right sequence

Protect the instrument

Monitor all system failures

Monitor environment conditionweather(!), computer health, UPS

Emergency planrepair, use of partly defect system

Judge weatherImmediately react on critical conditions

•wind speed, humidity

Predict weather•…saves time

Seeing, clouds•optimize target selection

The scheduling problem

Traditionally: A few nights, few targets tailored to observing period

Robotic: Span entire seasons, lots of targets

An ad-hoc approach not feasible

Approaches:

Queue scheduling:

Prescribe a distinct timeline

Easy to implement

Needs lots of human interference

Cannot react to changing conditions

Approaches (cont‘d):

Optimal scheduling:

Optimize schedule for given time-base.

CPU-intense (N! - permutations).

Unpredicted changes of conditions break schedule.

Difficult with changing weather, but used in space.

Approaches (cont‘d):

Dispatch scheduling:

Picks target according to actual conditions.

Must run in real-time, but N

Allows easy reaction to weather changes.

Used on most current robotic systems.

Current projects

Hawaii

Australia

Texas

La Palma /Tenerife

South Africa

Chile

Arizona

Fairborn Observatory

Washington Camp, Arizona

Fairborn Observatory

14 robotic telescopes, 0.1-2m

First installation world-wide

Mainly Photometry

REM

Focuses on -ray bursts

SWIFT satellite triggers Earth-bound telescopes

Robotic telescopes can react within seconds.

Chile, fully robotic

Project Monet

• Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung

2x1.2m telescopes

Univ. Göttingen, SAAO, McDonald Observatory

App. 50% of total time for 'Hands-On Universe' school-projects

Liverpool & Faulkes

3x 2m Telescopes in La Palma, Hawaii and Australia

Again emphazises acces for schools and students

Robotic & remote modi

Twin-telescope STELLA

Tenerife / Teide2400m Altitude2x 1,2m telescopesAIP/IAC

STELLA

Two 1.2m & 0.8m, f/8 Alt/Az telescopes

Project STELLA

STELLA-I

Echelle Spectrograph, R470002kx2k Marconi chip

STELLA-II

Wide-field imager, 22’ FoV, Strømgren filters4kx4k STA chip

11 26 04

What's next?

Antarctica, Dome C

Exceptional seeing (0".27)

Ideal for AO & IR (high isoplanatic angle of 7".9)

'Half step' to Moon/Space

see also Lawrence, Nature 431, 278L

Shackleton@Moon?

lower pic. Margot/Cornell U

Passive cooling to 50K

Stable platform

No Expendables, no gyros

Fixed telescope for ultra-deep fields

Data rate ~50Mbyt/s (64x64k@1/600 Hz)

see also Angel, SPIE 5487, p.1

…but start realistic

Start with a ~4m precursorExperience with 4m class robotic telescopes (~10 ys.)

Possible benefits from Antarctica telescopes (~10 ys.)