jase
26-07-2013, 09:17 PM
The great work performed by the BOSS team has got me thinking about transient event handling of supernovae, gama ray bursts, etc. whereby a robotic observatory, if online (weather safe) can respond to an event it receives and report back its observations (fits image data, etc). The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (http://www.ivoa.net/) which also has an Australian contingent (http://aus-vo.org.au/) sends these events (known as VOEvents - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOEvent) in near real time to numerous professional observatories so they can react quickly. There is various information on the VOEvent details - http://wiki.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/IvoaVOEvent. I understand that tapping into this transient event network is typically limited to the professional observatories, at least until recent years.
I have been contemplating setting up the observatory to respond to these events in an automated fashion. The observatory is already robotic i.e. I input an observing plan of target coordinates and at the end of the night data is output for those exact coordinates. I don't worry about focusing, telescope pointing, weather events, dome open/close, whether the object is high enough, or observe through certain filters while the moon about, etc as ACP and ACP Scheduler handle all of these tasks and make an intelligent decision of what to observe where, when and how. While I exclusively use ACP and ACP scheduler for astro imaging to maximise data acquisition, there is an option for ACP Scheduler to listen to VOEvents (need to register first). In doing so, if the observatory is online (weather safe) and an event is received it will evaluate whether it can make the observation and if so immediately process the request, then go back to doing what is was doing before i.e. astro imaging. There is considerable information on the ACP Scheduler site in how it works for those interested - http://scheduler.dc3.com/
I'm wondering how many people on IIS receive these events, and more importantly have you got your observatory to a level where such an event would trigger an observation?
What has been your experience in the observatory work flow i.e. how disruptive are the VOEvents? Astro imaging still remains my primary focus but I can afford a couple of hours a night for scientific follow up observations. I'm not interested in making new discoveries, I'll leave that to the more dedicated scientific types but happy for follow up work to take place. I'm in no way planning to do all night sky surveys though ACP Scheduler make this task a complete breeze.
Not sure how many I'll hear from as this is at the advanced end of the scale but thought I'd put it out there.
I have been contemplating setting up the observatory to respond to these events in an automated fashion. The observatory is already robotic i.e. I input an observing plan of target coordinates and at the end of the night data is output for those exact coordinates. I don't worry about focusing, telescope pointing, weather events, dome open/close, whether the object is high enough, or observe through certain filters while the moon about, etc as ACP and ACP Scheduler handle all of these tasks and make an intelligent decision of what to observe where, when and how. While I exclusively use ACP and ACP scheduler for astro imaging to maximise data acquisition, there is an option for ACP Scheduler to listen to VOEvents (need to register first). In doing so, if the observatory is online (weather safe) and an event is received it will evaluate whether it can make the observation and if so immediately process the request, then go back to doing what is was doing before i.e. astro imaging. There is considerable information on the ACP Scheduler site in how it works for those interested - http://scheduler.dc3.com/
I'm wondering how many people on IIS receive these events, and more importantly have you got your observatory to a level where such an event would trigger an observation?
What has been your experience in the observatory work flow i.e. how disruptive are the VOEvents? Astro imaging still remains my primary focus but I can afford a couple of hours a night for scientific follow up observations. I'm not interested in making new discoveries, I'll leave that to the more dedicated scientific types but happy for follow up work to take place. I'm in no way planning to do all night sky surveys though ACP Scheduler make this task a complete breeze.
Not sure how many I'll hear from as this is at the advanced end of the scale but thought I'd put it out there.