Enabling schools and public access to the Liverpool Robotic Telescope

Iain A. Steele; Andrew M. Newsam; C J Mottram; Paul McNerney

doi:10.1117/12.387221

2 June 2000 Enabling schools and public access to the Liverpool Robotic Telescope

Iain A. Steele, Andrew M. Newsam, C J Mottram, Paul McNerney

Proceedings Volume 4011, Advanced Global Communications Technologies for Astronomy; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.387221
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2000, Munich, Germany

Abstract

Five per-cent of the observing time on the Liverpool Telescope (a 2-m robotic telescope sited in La Palma) will be set aside for public understanding of science. Schools access will be via, a queue scheduling mechanism, and public access via live Planetarium shows. We describe the development and performance of a generic Java message passing system to allow communication between the processes implementing the robotic control of the telescope and the remote processes that will be run at the Planetarium. We also describe an adaptive data compression algorithm to allow transfer of data back from the telescope in near real time and our software for Planetarium access which allows staff at the Planetarium to implement their own control system and display software. Finally we describe our hierarchical web-based system for schools to input observation requests and the image processing software we have developed to allow them to make quantitative measurements of the resulting data.

Citation Download Citation

Iain A. Steele, Andrew M. Newsam, C J Mottram, and Paul McNerney "Enabling schools and public access to the Liverpool Robotic Telescope", Proc. SPIE 4011, Advanced Global Communications Technologies for Astronomy, (2 June 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.387221

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