Related papers: Operational Concepts of Large Telescopes
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…
Astronomical datasets are growing in size and diversity, posing severe technical problems. At the same time scientific goals increasingly require the analysis of very large amounts of data, and data from multiple archives. The Virtual…
In this contribution we report the on-going progresses of the project FATE, an operational automatic forecast system conceived to deliver forecasts of a set of astroclimatic and atmospheric parameters having the aim to support the science…
The Science Operation Department is composed of Astronomers, Telescope Instruments Operators (TIO) and Data Handling Administrators (DHAs). Their main goal is to produce top-quality astronomical data by operating a suite of 9 telescopes, 14…
This paper aims at giving an update on the most versatile adaptive optics fed instrument to date, the well known and successful NACO . Although NACO is only scheduled for about two more years at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), it keeps on…
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 next generation of large ground-based optical and infrared telescopes will provide new challenges for designers of astronomical instrumentation. The varied science cases for these extremely large telescopes (ELTs) require a large range…
The Virtual Observatory (VO) is realizing global electronic integration of astronomy data. One of the long-term goals of the U.S. VO project, the Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO), is development of services and protocols that respond…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Observatory end-to-end science operations is the overall process starting with a scientific question, represented by a proposal requesting observing time, and ending with the analysis of observation data addressing that question, and…
All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation.…
Operation of the US Virtual Astronomical Observatory shares some issues with modern physical observatories, e.g., intimidating data volumes and rapid technological change, and must also address unique concerns like the lack of direct…
We review some of the scientific opportunities and technical challenges posed by the exploration of the large digital sky surveys, in the context of a Virtual Observatory (VO). The VO paradigm will profoundly change the way observational…
Adaptive Optics is a prime example of how progress in observational astronomy can be driven by technological developments. At many observatories it is now considered to be part of a standard instrumentation suite, enabling ground-based…
The knowledge discovery potential of the new large astronomical databases is vast. When these are used in conjunction with the rich legacy data archives, the opportunities for scientific discovery multiply rapidly. A Virtual Observatory…
In this contribution we present the most relevant results obtained in the context of a feasibility study (MOSE) undertaken for ESO. The principal aim of the project was to quantify the performances of a mesoscale model (Astro-Meso-NH code)…
A virtual observatory will not only enhance many current scientific investigations, but it will also enable entirely new scientific explorations due to both the federation of vast amounts of multiwavelength data and the new archival…
The emergence of time-domain multi-messenger (astro)physics requires for new, improved ways of interchanging scheduling information, in order to allow more efficient collaborations between the various teams. Currently space- and…
The preparation of the long-term telescope schedule follows the submission and scientific review of new proposals. At the European Southern Observatory (ESO) this process entails scheduling the scientific proposals according to their…