What makes an automated telescope robotic?

Abstract. STELLA is a robotic observatory with two fully automatic telescopes (STELLA-I and STELLA-II) located at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, Spain. Not only the telescopes are automatic but also the entire observatory, no human presence is needed for observing -not even in remote control. STELLA-I supports a high-resolution, fiber-fed and benchmounted echelle spectrograph and a wide-field CCD imaging photometer while STELLA-II feeds a similar but wide-band imaging photometer and a testbed for prototype adaptive optics for robotic telescopes. The first telescope is scheduled for first light in

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“…The scheduler is also part of the SCS and tells both telescopes what target to choose next. It is described in detail by Granzer (2004).…”

Section: The Stella Control System (Scs) and Computer Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The STELLA robotic observatory

Strassméier¹,

Granzer

Weber

et al. 2004

Astron Nachr

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“…For scheduling, STELLA uses a dispatcher schema similar to most robotic or autonomous telescopes, 7 though many different algorithms have been described. 8 For more information on on the interaction of work-flow templates and target definitions see Granzer et al (2012). 9 …”

Section: A Generic Description Of the Central Nodementioning

confidence: 99%

The STELLA robotic observatory on Tenerife

Weber¹,

Granzer²,

Strassmeier³

2012

SPIE Proceedings

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The STELLA project is made up of two 1.2m robotic telescopes to simultaneously monitor stellar activity using a high-resolution spectrograph on one telescope, and an imaging instrument on the other telescope. The STELLA Echelle spectrograph (SES) along with the building has been in operation successfully since 2006, and is producing spectra covering the visual wavelength range between 390 and 900 nm at a resolution of 55 000. The stability of the spectrograph over the entire two year span, measured by monitoring 15 radial velocity standard stars, is 30 to 150 m/s rms. The Wide-field stellar imager and photometer (WIFSIP) was put into operation in 2010, when the SES-lightfeed was physically moved to the second telescope. We describe the final instrument configuration in use now, and on the efficiency of the robotic scheduling in use at the observatory.

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“…Astronomical operation is handled by the robotic STELLA Control System SCS (Granzer , ). Its scheduler provides the field coordinates to the sequencer who executes the task.…”

Section: Operation and Data Handlingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Project BMK10k: Zeiss Ballistische Messkammer with a 10k × 10k CCD for ground‐based PLATO support

et al. 2019

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Ballistische Messkammer with 10k CCD's (BMK10k) central goal is supporting the upcoming PLAnetary Transits and Oscillation of stars (PLATO) mission by reducing its number of false positives (planet‐compatible transit candidates but not planets at the end). For Kepler, the number of false positives had been estimated to still be about 10%. Understanding the PLATO false alarm rate is not as straightforward, and preparatory data from the ground will dramatically improve the target selection and minimize the number of false positives. We aim to identify the target contamination for every PLATO target and initially provide well‐sampled light curves of all detectable contaminants in the long‐duration southern PLATO field. Thereby, it will be possible to identify background eclipsing binaries and rotating spotted stars with periods between 1 hr and 100 days down to 17–18th mag. This will be achieved with a dedicated robotic telescope with one of the world's largest CCDs with the smallest pixels, enabling a field of view of 52.5 square degrees with a sampling of 2.5″/pix. Auxiliary science is also foreseen and will focus on the period–mass relation of Ptolemy's cluster (M7). In this paper, we describe the entire telescope system and show initial commissioning data.

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What makes an automated telescope robotic?

Cited by 21 publications

References 3 publications

The STELLA robotic observatory

The STELLA robotic observatory

The STELLA robotic observatory on Tenerife

Project BMK10k: Zeiss Ballistische Messkammer with a 10k × 10k CCD for ground‐based PLATO support

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