Related papers: pyobs -- An observatory control system forrobotic …
Setting up robot environments to quickly test newly developed algorithms is still a difficult and time consuming process. This presents a significant hurdle to researchers interested in performing real-world robotic experiments. RobotIO is…
Remote observing can be broadly defined as those observations where the astronomer is not physically present at the telescope. Different implementations presently in use include robotic telescopes, service observing with or without…
The observation of small bodies in the Space Environment is an ongoing important task in astronomy. While nowadays new objects are mostly detected in larger sky surveys, several follow-up observations are usually needed for each object to…
This paper addresses the lack of a general methodology for the controller synthesis of an optical instrument on-board a stratospheric balloon-borne platform, such as a telescope or siderostat, to meet pointing requirements that are becoming…
A concept of the ground-based optical astronomical observations efficiency is considered in this paper. We believe that a telescope efficiency can be increased by properly allocating observation tasks with respect to the current environment…
Observatories are complex scientific and technical institutions serving diverse users and purposes. Their telescopes, instruments, software, and human resources engage in interwoven workflows over a broad range of timescales. These…
Bibliometric studies have become increasingly important in evaluating individual scientists, specific facilities, and entire observatories. In this context, the ESO Library has developed and maintains two tools: FUSE, a full-text search…
An apparatus to search for optical flashes in the sky is described. It has been optimized for gamma ray bursts (GRB) optical counterparts. It consists of 2x16 cameras covering all the sky. The sky is monitored continuously and the data are…
Focused optical fields are key to a multitude of applications involving light-matter interactions, such as optical microscopy, single-molecule spectroscopy, optical tweezers, lithography, or quantum coherent control. A detailed vectorial…
Linear operators and optimisation are at the core of many algorithms used in signal and image processing, remote sensing, and inverse problems. For small to medium-scale problems, existing software packages (e.g., MATLAB, Python numpy and…
Since Lorenz's seminal work on a simplified weather model, the numerical analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems has become one of the main subjects of research in physics. Despite of that, there remains a need for accessible, efficient,…
The Rapid Telescope for Optical Response (RAPTOR) program consists of a network of robotic telescopes dedicated to the search for fast optical transients. The pilot project is composed of three observatories separated by approximately 38…
A prototype system for the Permanent All Sky Survey (PASS) project is presented. PASS is a continuous photometric survey of the entire celestial sphere with a high temporal resolution. Its major objectives are the detection of all…
Relational databases (DBs) are ideal tools to manage bulky and structured data archives. In particular for Astronomy they can be used to fulfill all the requirements of a complex project, i.e. the management of: documents, software (s/w)…
We present a Python tool to generate a standard dataset from solar images that allows for user-defined selection criteria and a range of pre-processing steps. Our Python tool works with all image products from both the Solar and…
Runtime verification (RV) now scales for testing thousands of open-source Java projects, helping find hundreds of bugs. The popular Python ecosystem could use such benefits. But, today's Python RV systems are limited to a domain or…
The Princeton Variability Survey (PVS) is a robotic survey which makes use of readily available, ``off-the-shelf'' type hardware products, in conjunction with a powerful set of commercial software products, in order to monitor and discover…
Modern astronomical surveys such as the Large Synoptic Sky Survey (LSST) promise an unprecedented wealth of discoveries, delivered in the form of ~10 million alerts of time-variable events per night. Astronomers are faced with the daunting…
Although the astronomy community is witnessing an era of large telescopes, smaller and medium sized telescopes still maintain their utility being larger in numbers. In order to obtain better scientific outputs it is necessary to incorporate…
SONG aims at setting up a network of small 1m telescopes around the globe to observe stars uninterrupted throughout days, weeks and even months. This paper describes the fundamental aspects for putting up such a network and how we will…