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In general useage, a robotic telescope is a system which can provide integrated computer control of a telescope mount and CCD camera. As of July 2001, Optical Guidance Systems is one of the few companies to list off-the-shelf robotic telescope systems available for purchase. Such systems contue to be rather expensive, but this is likely to change in the near future since there is clearly a small, but well defined, niche market for this technology. In general, such systems must currently be custom built, or may be built by combining and integrating appropriate components. Software Bisque offers such a selection of components. The telescope control technology currently seems to be somewhat more mature than the camera control technology.
Optical Guidance Systems
http://OpticalGuidanceSystems.com
2450 Huntingdon Pike
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
215-947-5571
OGS can provide research grade Ritche-Chretien telescopes from 10 to 40 inches in aperture. All their mounts are internet controllable using the ASCOM platform and the PC-TCS contrtol system. Since they also resell CCD cameras, OGS can apparently provide turn-key robotic telescope systems.
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912 Twelfth Street
Golden, Colorado 90401-1114
SoftwareBisqu can provide all the components necessary to build a robotic telescope system. While they do not technically offer a turn-key system, one can purchase (from their website) all the components necessary to build a complete robotic telescope system. This includes...
Paramount GT-1100S computer controlled telescope mountvarious Optical Telescope Units (OTUs)... such as from Celestron and Mede
CCD cameras... from SBIG
CCDSoft camera control software... for SBIG and other cameras
Orchestrate scripting software environment for running and developing telescope and camera scripts
The Paramount with a Celestron 14
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6001 Oak Canyon
Irvine, CA 96218
949-451-1450
Meade offers a full line of Schmidt-Cassegrain and Schmidt-Maksutof telescopes from 3.5 inch aperture to 12 inch aperture. They also offer a 16 inch research grade Schmidt-Cassegrain system. Their LX200 series mounts were designed to be GOTO systems. Their Autostar software that provides the GOTO capability claims 2 arcminute pointing or better to any point on the sky for objects selected from a database or from specified RA and DEC. Mede seems quite willing to support the robotic telescope technology and is even bundling Astronomer's Control Panel for direct computer control with all LX200 model telescope mounts. The ASCOM Platform now contains an interface for the LX200 mounts. A large number of existing small robotic telescopes use the LX200 mount.
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2835 Columbia Street
Torrance, CA 90503
310-328-9560
Celestron offers a full line of Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes from 4 inch aperture to 14 inch aperture. Their NextStar series mounts and software provide GOTO capability. The NextStar mounts reportedly track and point less accurately than the LX200 mounts from Mede (Sky and Telescope, May 2001, pg. 55). The ASCOM Platform now contains an interface for NextStar.
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11250 Forest Hills Road
Rockford, IL 61115
815-282-1513
High-quality refractors and German equatorial mountings. Several sizes of mounts are available, but the largest 1200GTO ($7500) is rated at carrying 140 pounds. Adapter plates are available for most common OTAs including those by Meade and Celestron. These mounts can be controlled using The Sky.
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Custom telescopes for CCD imaging. The flagship instrument is the Centurion 18, which is an 18 inch f/2.8 fork mounted prime focus imaging telescope ($25000). Telescope motion uses a partial implementation of the LX protocols by Meade. Telescope can be controlled using The Sky. It is claimed that the telescope has absolute encoding and will point to 1 arcminute. It is claimed the resyncing is not necessary.
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http://www.dfmengineering.com/products.html
This company produces professional quality computer controlled telescope systems. They have also been involved in retrofitting a number of older telescopes. These telescopes are among the highest quality astronomical instruments available.
The DFM telescopes provide blind pointing to better than 30 arcseconds for a 16-inch and better than 20-arcseconds for a 20-inch. Typically the DFM telescopes seem to point to better than 15 arcseconds RMS. The 16-inch DFM telescopes track to within 2 arcseconds for 2 minutes, and within 10 arcseconds over an hour. Tracking is even better for the larger telescopes.
The DFM 16-inch system is available at a base price near $94,1000 (as of February 2005).
DFM 16-inch Telescope System
http://www.comsoft-telescope.com/
1552 West Chapala Drive
Tucson AZ 85704
520.360.2078
Comsoft produces PC-TCS which is a computer based telescope control system. This product is available for DC servo motor systems ( PC-TCS/DCS) and for stepper motor systems (PC-TCS/CT ). These systems are custom built for individual telescope systems and prices can range from $25000 to $60000 for CD servo systems. Complete stepper motor systems are available for $7000. A number of commercial telescope mounts now use PC-TCS (in pareticular, OGS).
A complete PC-TCS/CT system
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