converting from classical to robotic astronomy the lowell observatory 0.8-m telescope转换从古典音乐到机器人天文学洛厄尔天文台的0.8米望远镜.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Astronomy Volume 2010, Article ID 130172, 12 pages doi:10.1155/2010/130172 Research Article Converting from Classical to Robotic Astronomy: The Lowell Observatory 0.8-m Telescope Marc W. Buie Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 300, Boulder, CO 80302, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Marc W. Buie, buie@ Received 3 June 2009; Accepted 2 December 2009 Academic Editor: Alberto J. Castro-Tirado Copyright © 2010 Marc W. Buie. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Lowell Observatory 0.8-m (31-in) Telescope was augmented by the addition of a robotic mode of operation in early 2001. This system executes any predetermined sequence of observing instructions without supervision. Described herein is a general description of the system, lessons learned from the conversion, and a few general algorithms for focusing, collecting twilight flat field images, and scheduling standard star observations. 1. Introduction In this paper the design objectives and constraints involved in moving this telescope from classical hands-on The power and value of autonomous observing has long observing to robotic hands-off observing are summarized. been recognized in the amateur astronomy community while The observing queue system and two camera systems adoption has been slow at professional observatories. In will be discussed along with changes needed