Basic Overview

The autonomous telescope we are constructing at Missouri State University (I'll call it "roboscope" for short) has a couple important goals. These include:

• User friendliness. Students should be able to schedule an observation as a part of classwork.
• Dependability/Autonomy. If you schedule something and the weather is good, you should have results as soon as you wake up the next day with no user intervention required.
• Modularity. Components should be easy to switch out. This is good for the long term operation as parts will inevitably wear out or become obsolete.
• Economics. Most telescope systems of this scale are out of reach for many schools because of cost. We aim to develop a system that other institutions can afford for themselves.

The hardest part about a project of this magnitude is stepping back and looking at all the components as a whole. This post is a sneak peek of some of the components making up our robotic observatory.

Prototype diagram

Our telescope system is composed of many parts. At the heart of it all is a computer running RTS2 software (among other things). This computer gathers information from a weather and temperature sensors and sends commands to hardware inside the dome. This includes dome motors, a telescope/mount, filterwheel, focuser, and ventilation. Not pictured in this diagram is surveillance and the security system protecting the equipment. Further posts will talk about each of these components in greater detail.