A MOnitoring NEtwork of Telescopes Dr. Frederic V. Hessman Prof. Klaus Beuermann UniversittsSternwar

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AMOnitoring NEtwork of TelescopesDr. Frederic
V. Hessman Prof. Klaus BeuermannUniversitäts-St
ernwarte Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
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Experimental Astrophysics in the 21st Century

• Age of large ground- and spaced-based telescopes
• Shift from 1-2m class telescopes to 2-4m class
  telescopes for support observations
• Change in the way ground-based telescopes are
  used
• End of the age of small telescopes?

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Tools of the 21st Century Astrophysicist
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Role of Small (1-2m) Telescopes

• Support observations for 2-4m telescopes
• Projects which require large amounts of
  observation time
• Projects which require extreme flexibility

• Observations must be easy to obtain
• Projects must be easy to manage with low
  personnel costs
• Must have immediate access to own telescopes

?
? Need Your Own Robotic Telescopes
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Example COYOTES Collaboration
Large Collaboration organized by Bouvier
(Grenoble) to measure rotation periods of
pre-main sequence stars 500 nights 12
different telescopes 12 different CCD, filter
systems 20 different observers tens of
thousands of observations
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Robotic Telescopes

• automatically
• open close, react to weather
• perform calibrations
• deal with complex scheduling problems
• perform observations
• reduce archive data
• analyze data

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Current Robotic Telescope Projects
Just a few examples.
Gamma-Ray Burst Identification (ROTSE, LOTIS)
APT telescopes (Fairborn Obs., Arizona)

RoboScope, SpectraBot (Univ. Indiana)
Katzman Autom. Imaging Tel. (Univ. Calif.
Berkeley)
Tennessee 2m (spectroscopy)
John Moore University (Liverpool)
Iowa Robotic Telescope Facility (Univ. Iowa,
WMO/Arizona)
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History of the Project
Beautiful old observatory in a lovely college
town, but terrible German weather
Use of 8-meter class telescopes (VLT,
Hobby-Eberly-Telescope, SALT)
Need for observations of variable
stars (Cataclysmic Variables, Young Stellar
Objects, AGN)
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s Benefactor

• Funding for two 80cm telescopes
• Foundation mainly interested in educational use
  by
• schools in the Ruhr Valley as well as in Lower
  Saxony

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s Partners
Universitäts-Sternwarte Göttingen Provides
capital funding for 2 telescopes, Data Center
McDonald Observatory / Univ. Texas at
Austin Operating expenses, infrastructure for
northern telescope
South African Astronomical Observatory? Operating
expenses for southern telescope???
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How will be different?

• Complete sky coverage with integrated network
• Good longitude coverage

• Scientific plus educational goals

• Reasonably large telescopes (0.8-1.2m)

• International collaboration

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Examples of Science with

• Detection of extrasolar planets via
  micro-lensing and/or eclipses
• Angular momentum evolution of young stars
• Dynamo activity of young stars, close binaries
• Echo-mapping of Active Galactic Nuclei,
  Blazars
• Photometric monitoring of accreting binaries
• Astroseismology
• Near-Earth, Transneptunian objects
• ..

• Monitoring objects for 8m class telescope
  projects
• Simultaneous observations with space
  observatories
• Preparation observations
• Calibration observations
• ..

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Science Education with

• Remote web-based use by classes with trained
  teachers
• Connected to global Hands-On Universe telescope
  network

• Remote VR use in Göttingens XLAB science center
• Scientific project partners for interested
  classes
• Targeting of young women

• Improvement of astronomy laboratories
• Semi-autonomous student Project Lab

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s Clients
Göttingen Observatory

Schools (including HOU)
Student Lab
South Africa??
Texas
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Venders for Robotic Telescopes

• For example .
• Torus Technologies (Iowa City, IA)
• Telescope Technologies Ltd. (Liverpool)
• SciTech Astronomical Research (Foresthill, CA)
• Teleskoptechnik Halfmann (Neusäß bei Augsburg)
• AstroOptik Keller (Pentling bei Nürnberg)
• OGSCOMSOFT (Tucson, AZ)
• Fairborn Observatory (Patagonia, AZ)

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Torus Technologies (Iowa City, IA)

• Grew out of small optics firm U. Iowas
  Robotic Telescope Facility
• ROTSE II, TAOS, Japan Space Forum, Washington
  Univ. (St.Louis) Indian GRB, Spanish GRB
  consortium..

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Telescope Technologies Ltd. (Liverpool)

• Grew out of Liverpool Telescope Project
• Wholly owned by the John Moores University
• Liverpool 2m (La Palma)
• Indian 2m (IUCAA)
• 2x2m School Telescopes (Maui, Siding Springs)
  donated by British businessman

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SciTech Astron. Research (CA)

• Jim Wray
• Unique futuristic design
• GNAT standard system
• NASA Orbital Debris Survey
• Uses Fairborn Observatorys ATIS protocol

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Teleskoptechnik Halfmann

• Manufacturer of high-speed presses
• Built coelostats for ESO VLTI
• Number of 0.4-0.9m telescopes for schools,
  amateurs, Bochum
• Building 1.2m STELLA Telescope for Hamburg
  Potsdam

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Technological Challenges

• Robotic Software
• Hopefully from venders
• Communication within Network
• Communication with other Networks
• Remote Telescope Markup Language
• Administration of partners different scheduling
  needs
• TTL offers complete solution.
• Maintenance of data pipeline, databank
• Use ESO VST/OmegaCams
• paradigm?

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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language

• XML dialect developed by the Hands-On Universe
  project in order to connect network of
  inhomogenous telescopes

standalone"no"? "http//hou.lbl.gov/rtml/rtml.dtd" version"1.0" mode"obslist" email"dtaylor_at_uniwestsyd" school"University
of West Sydney" teacher"Professor of Astronomy"
/ username"uniwestsyd" observers"David Taylor"
reason"Astronomy Research" timestamp"Mar 29
2000 phase"1" / name"NGC 2266" numobs"1" ra"06.41.42.00" dec"27.00.00.00"
equinox"unknown" epoch"2000" hamax"4"
raFormat"hh.mm.ss.dd" decFormat"deg.mm.ss.dd"
dformat"mm.dd.yyyy" / tunits"sec" filter"Clear" / rate"sidereal" / dark"true" fixpix"true" crpix"true"
flat"true" dome"true" fringe"true" /

103 1119 2 2 2451513 2451513 22.500 4.500 1
100 M31 Wray 105 1 30 0.00 43 0 0 2000 510 1 1 1
0 30.0 1 1 3 0.0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 M31 510 1 2 1 0
30.0 1 1 3 0.0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 M31 510 1 3 1 0 30.0
1 1 3 0.0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 M31 510 1 4 1 0 30.0 1 1
3 0.0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 M31 115
RTML
ATIS
vs.
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Scheduling Databank Issues

• Must serve Partners scientific and educational
  PIs
• Example from TTL/Liverpool

PI Submissions, Requests
Data Center
Observer DB
Proposal DB
Phase II DB
ToO DB
Archive DB
Validation
Schedule, Observation, Reduction, History DB
Raw Data
ReducedData
Scheduler
Sequencer
Pipeline
TCS/OCS
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Goals for the Scientific Usage

• Fast and transparent access for the user
• Minimum of red tape and overhead
• Efficient use as ToO facility
• Connection to HET and SALT
• Standard data pipeline
• User-defined data pipeline add-ons
• Quick response to user-defined events
• Reduce the need for access to raw reduced data
• Simple administration of long-term projects

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Status of
www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de/hessman/MONET

• Legal agreement with Texas practically finished
• Ready to tender offers from manufacturers
• Project on hold no solution yet for southern
  partner
• Installation of first telescope by early 2002?
• Full operation by early 2003?

• Potential name change!