1.5 Robotic and Remote Observing
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to determine which observation to run next. Obviously, it will filter out any jobs
whose target is not visible for some or all of the night, it will then look at the sky
conditions and determine which observations have condition limits that are not met
by the current conditions, and filter those out. It will then look at the priority of each
unfiltered job and determine which one to run.
Remote telescope operation is slightly different from robotic telescope operation. Remote telescopes are telescopes whose control computer can be controlled
remotely via, for example, VNC or Windows Remote Desktop. With remote telescopes, you are effectively running the telescope; you are just not in the dome. All
robotic telescopes are capable of remote operation, but not all remote telescopes
are capable of independent operation; they may lack the necessary software (and
some hardware). There is no queue, just you, a computer and a telescope, possibly
thousands of kilometres away. If you have access to a robotic telescope and have
a time-critical observation, then it might be worth asking whether you can use the
telescope in remote mode rather than the robotic mode. Then you can be sure, barring
bad weather or equipment failure, that your observations will be made. Of course,
the downside of this is the need to be at the computer in the middle of the night,
whereas if you were in the robotic mode, you could be home in a nice warm bed.
One last operational mode we should discuss is service mode. You are unlikely to
encounter this as an undergraduate, but you will encounter it quite a bit if you go on
to a career in observational astrophysics. In service mode, you write a telescope plan,
and a person in the observatory takes the observation for you without you having
to be there. Many very large telescopes are heavily automated, but the operational
cost of a system failure is too high to run in robotic mode. Telescopes like the Very
Large Telescope in Chile cost in excess of e10,000 per night to run and are heavily
oversubscribed. Robotic telescopes have a failure rate that is currently unacceptable
to these big observatories, and service mode is a halfway house between robotic
observations and actually flying out and doing the observation yourself (which despite
being really exciting the first few times is costly and not good for the environment).
7
to determine which observation to run next. Obviously, it will filter out any jobs
whose target is not visible for some or all of the night, it will then look at the sky
conditions and determine which observations have condition limits that are not met
by the current conditions, and filter those out. It will then look at the priority of each
unfiltered job and determine which one to run.
Remote telescope operation is slightly different from robotic telescope operation. Remote telescopes are telescopes whose control computer can be controlled
remotely via, for example, VNC or Windows Remote Desktop. With remote telescopes, you are effectively running the telescope; you are just not in the dome. All
robotic telescopes are capable of remote operation, but not all remote telescopes
are capable of independent operation; they may lack the necessary software (and
some hardware). There is no queue, just you, a computer and a telescope, possibly
thousands of kilometres away. If you have access to a robotic telescope and have
a time-critical observation, then it might be worth asking whether you can use the
telescope in remote mode rather than the robotic mode. Then you can be sure, barring
bad weather or equipment failure, that your observations will be made. Of course,
the downside of this is the need to be at the computer in the middle of the night,
whereas if you were in the robotic mode, you could be home in a nice warm bed.
One last operational mode we should discuss is service mode. You are unlikely to
encounter this as an undergraduate, but you will encounter it quite a bit if you go on
to a career in observational astrophysics. In service mode, you write a telescope plan,
and a person in the observatory takes the observation for you without you having
to be there. Many very large telescopes are heavily automated, but the operational
cost of a system failure is too high to run in robotic mode. Telescopes like the Very
Large Telescope in Chile cost in excess of e10,000 per night to run and are heavily
oversubscribed. Robotic telescopes have a failure rate that is currently unacceptable
to these big observatories, and service mode is a halfway house between robotic
observations and actually flying out and doing the observation yourself (which despite
being really exciting the first few times is costly and not good for the environment).