Intelligent stargazing: the observatory control system for meter class telescopes at South African Astronomical Observatory

Sunil Chandra; Stephen B. Potter; Nicolas Erasmus; Carel H. D. R. van Gend; Moloka Hlakola; Roufurd Julie; Christian Hettlage

doi:10.1117/12.3020339

25 July 2024 Intelligent stargazing: the observatory control system for meter class telescopes at South African Astronomical Observatory

Sunil Chandra, Stephen B. Potter, Nicolas Erasmus, Carel H. D. R. van Gend, Moloka Hlakola, Roufurd Julie, Christian Hettlage

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13098, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems X; 130980Z (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020339
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Abstract

South African Astronomical Observatory has been spearheading an effort to modernize the optical/IR observing facilities in the country and also from across the African continents to network them to form an Intelligent Observatory (IO), operating robotically from a centralized control brain. To achieve such an ambitious system, one need to be equipped with modern technologies, computation capabilities, real-time coordination between observers and observatory, autonomous trigger management system etc. The primary objective is to enable a comprehensive facility for the follow up observations triggered by the most sophisticated global facilities like LSST, ROMAN, zTF, CTA etc. in near future. The recent developments at SAAO, the Observatory Control System (OCS) has proven to be an integrated sub-component of the complex IO architecture. The OCS, because of a simplistic fragmentation in terms of the definitions of the various components: such as telescopes, instruments, observations, logging; helped the IO architecture uniquely to integrate very old telescope and instruments, originally not designed for the automated operations. The OCS has reduced a lot of burden of the observatory management team by providing a communicable database for managements and data visualization.

Conference Presentation

(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Citation Download Citation

Sunil Chandra, Stephen B. Potter, Nicolas Erasmus, Carel H. D. R. van Gend, Moloka Hlakola, Roufurd Julie, and Christian Hettlage "Intelligent stargazing: the observatory control system for meter class telescopes at South African Astronomical Observatory", Proc. SPIE 13098, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems X, 130980Z (25 July 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020339

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available