and the Art of Robotic Telescopes Frederic V' Rick Hessman Klaus Beuermann UniversittsSternwarte Geo

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and the Art of Robotic TelescopesFrederic
V. Rick HessmanKlaus BeuermannUniversitäts-St
ernwarte Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
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Early 21st Century Astrophysics

• The Solar System
• Near-Earth Objects
• Trans-Neptunian Objects

• Interstellar Medium
• Evolution of the ISM

• Galaxies
• Global Star Formation Chemistry
• Formation Evolution, Clusters
• AGNs

• Stellar Astrophysics
• Star Formation
• Formation Evolution of Planets
• Sun / Dynamo-driven Stellar Activity
• Brown Dwarfs
• Accretion Phenomena
• Black Holes
• Supernovae / Hypernovae / GRB

• Cosmology
• Evolution of the Universe
• Large-Scale Structure

Science/Math Education
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Role of Small (1m) Telescopes

• Support observations for 3-9m telescopes

• Observations must be easy to obtain

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• Projects which require large amounts of
  observation time

• Observations must be easy to manage have
  low personnel efforts/costs

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• Projects which require extreme flexibility

• Must have immediate access to own telescopes

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• Useful for schools, university teaching

• Good weather / flexibly scheduled

?
? Need Your Own (Robotic) Small Telescopes
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Early 21st Century Astrophysics
1m-Class Robotic Telescope Projects for

• The Solar System
• Near-Earth Objects
• Trans-Neptunian Objects

• Interstellar Medium
• Evolution of the ISM

• Galaxies
• Global Star Formation Chemistry
• Formation Evolution, Clusters
• AGNs

• Stellar Astrophysics
• Star Formation
• Formation Evolution of Planets
• Sun / Dynamo-driven Stellar Activity
• Brown Dwarfs
• Accretion Phenomena
• Black Holes
• Supernovae / Hypernovae / GRB

• Cosmology
• Evolution of the Universe
• Large-Scale Structure

Science/Math Education
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Current Robotic Telescope Projects

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The Basic Idea
Map of Current Robotic Telescope Projects

• Reasonably large small telescopes (?0.8m)
• International large small telescope
  collaboration

• Complete sky coverage with integrated robotic
  network
• Good longitude coverage
• Scientific plus educational goals

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A Short History of the Project

• 1998-1999 Interest in small (0.5m) robotic
  telescopes for monitoring stars, initial
  contacts with partners, robotic telescope
  manufacturers and operators
• 1999 Letters of Intent from UT, SAAO as
  potential partners, upgrade to 1m apertures
• 2000 Successful proposal to the Alfried Krupp
  von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation for 1.3M ?
  Educational use of 50 of Göttingens time
• 2001 International tendering of telescopes,
  extended negotiations over legal agreement with
  UT, SAAO (minimum of 5 on both telescopes),
  initial study of possible enclosure types
• 2002 Final legal agreement, order for two 1.2m
  telescopes with Halfmann Teleskoptechnik, study
  of enclosures by Zietsman, Lloyd Hemsted Inc.
  (South Africa)
• 2003 Design/Construction of two pre-fabricated
  enclosures from a South African Joint Venture
  headed by ZLH

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How are the telescopes different?

• from normal telescopes
• fully robotic service observations
• instant access to whole sky
• no dome best possible seeing, rapid slew
  times
• direct access / ToO
• from other robotic telescopes
• much larger aperture than most
• better sampling of seeing
• fully networked
• link to really large telescopes

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The Telescopes

• Properties
• Design based on STELLA telescope
• Alt-Az mounting
• 1.2m (47-inch) aperture
• f/7 RC optics with 14 uncorrected and
  30 correctable field (24.6 arcsec/mm)
• two Nasmyth foci (only one available at first)
• direct magnetic drives (up to 10/sec)
• 13x 70mm filters
• Initially 1k x 1k AP47p CCDs (Marconi)

STELLA I Telescope (HamburgPotsdam) Teleskoptechn
ik Halfmann / Neusäß bei Augsburg
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STELLA
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Enclosure Ideas

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The Final Enclosures
¼-Cylinder Roof Section Roof Carriage screw Left
Carriage in Closed Position Right Carriage in
Open Position Guiding Lever Arm for Roof
Section Hollow Cylindrical Pier Pre-Fabricated
Steel Structure Steel-Styrofoam Sandwich Panels

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The Locations
Mt. Locke
SALT
HET
Sutherland
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(Göttingen) Software
Local TAC
Users
Creation of Project User Accounts,Time-Allocatio
n, Review of Projects
Phase I Information
Project
Göttingen Internet Server (WebObjectsTM)
Live Use of Telescopes
Phase II, data
Project and User Database
MONET/North
requests, data
MONET/South
FITS Image Data Database
RTML
Other Telescopes
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Phase I Preparation, Review
Local TAC
Creation of Project User Accounts, Review of
Projects
Users
Göttingen Internet Server
Project
Phase I Information, Planning Tools
Project and User Database
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Time-Allocation, Phase II
Local TAC
Users
Time-Allocation
Phase II Information, Scheduling Tools
Project
Göttingen Internet Server
Project and User Database
MONET/North
requests
MONET/South
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Observations
Local TAC
Users
Monitoring of Time-Fractions
Göttingen Internet Server
Project
Email, data transfer
Project and User Database
MONET/North
data
FITS Image Data Database
MONET/South
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Other Uses of Network Server
Virtual Observatory Access
Live Use of Telescopes
Göttingen Internet Server
MONET/North
data
MONET/South
FITS Image Data Database
RTML
Other Telescopes (e.g. SALT)
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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language
XML dialect originally developed by the Hands-On
Universe project and collaborators in order to
connect network of small, inhomogeneous imaging
telescopes (Version 2.1) Extensive enhancement
by MONET Project (Version 3.0) to cover Phase I,
Phase II planning, complex scheduling,
spectroscopy, etc.
Structure of ltRTMLgt Tag
http//hou.lbl.gov/rtml http//www.uni-sw.gwdg.de/
hessman/RTML
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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language
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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language
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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language
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RTML Remote Telescope Markup Language

• Benefits from widespread availability of XML
  tools
• Provides interface/medium for internet-based
  Project User Management (e.g. unique IDs,
  user time-charging)
• Provides medium for Phase I Phase II
  information transfer
• (e.g. automatic conversion to LaTeX via XSLT
  when needed)
• Provides syntax for site-independent scheduling
  (e.g. observing sequences, linked observations,
  seeing-, time-, wait- phase-constraints)
• Supports internet-accessible hardware
  configurations
• Formal interface to MONET database ( FITS data
  in file-system)
• Simple interfacing to other telescopes
  networks (first SALT HOU, later HET, STELLA,
  .)

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Examples of Local Science Projects

• Variable stars (YSOs, CVs, )
• Triggering HET/VLT/XMM/
• Testing stellar dynamo theories
• AGN monitoring
• Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Calibrating/Preparing/Accompanying large
  telescope observations
• Searches for planets
• Supernovae
• Near Earth Objects / TNOs
• Stellar Seismology
• .

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Texas-Göttingen Exoplanet Search

• Current Texas Exoplanet Activities
• Long-term spectroscopic search (Cochran, Hatzes)
• HST astrometry (Benedict), Astrobiology (Scalo)
• Photometry (Cochran, Baliber)
• Benefits of MONET to Texas
• More aperture (1.2 instead of 0.8m)
• Acceptable CCD field (22 instead of 46
  diameter)
• Better seeing resolution (0.3 instead of
  1.4/pix)
• Robotic scheduling
• Benefits of Texas to MONET/Göttingen
• 4k x 4k Marconi CCDs, corrective field optics

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Educational Aspects

• At the University
• Support of Diplom/doctoral projects
• Improvement of Astrophys. Praktikum
• Semi-autonomous Projektpraktikum

• In Public Schools (7th-13th Grade)
• Remote web-based use by participating school
  classes (roughly 40 of total time!)
• Cooperation with Göttingens XLAB science
  laboratory
• Provide international/scientific contacts for
  interested classes
• Targeting of young women
• Offer use of tested and internationally
  widespread Hands-On UniverseTM
  curriculum/software
• Development of local curriculum/software (EU
  local activities)

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Open Issues

• Telescope/Robotic software
• Tübingen
• Sonneberg
• Potsdam
• REM (Italian consortium)
• Texas (Elwood Downey)
• Final selection of McDonald site
• Financing of large CCDs
• McDonald has 60k, Göttingen budget for 2x 1k
  Marconi
• Impact of new Göttingen C4 Professor (replacing
  Beuermann)

Halfmann
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Status of

• Erection and commissioning of enclosures May
  July 2003
• Status of NSF proposal for CCDs
• May 2003
• Manufacture of telescope hardware
  finished Spring 2003
• Completion of initial Göttingen database
  server Spring 2003
• Delivery of optics (LOMO) to Halfmann
  June/July August/September 2003
• Erection and commissioning of telescopes during
  Summer/Fall 2003

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Finis