This site is intended to serve as a resource for those who wish to establish or build a robotic telescope for astronomical research or to support science education.
What is a robotic telescope?Components and capabilities of robotic telescope systemsGeneral resource list for robotic telescope developers
Some commercial robotic telescope systemsSome research projects for robotic telescopes
A robotic telescope is a computer controlled telescope and CCD camera system. There are several categories of robotic telescopes.
[ top of page ]
Supernova discovery
AGN surveillance and light curves
GRB observations
Eclipsing binaries
confirmation and period determination (i.e. Hipparcos discoveries)time of minima studies (mass transfer, apsidal motion, additional components)
light curves (modeling to determine fundamental stellar properties)
Cataclysmic variable surveillance and light curves
Variable star discovery and confirmation
Photometric detection and confirmation for extrasolar planets
Minor planet magnitude and color determination
Minor planet lightcurves
NEO confirmation
[ top of page ]
What's Up There?
Students review characteristics of a telescope system and detector and then submit requests for "appropriate" observations. Students gain experience determining what types of objects can be found in the sky, how to determine when they can be observed, and what kind of images to expect. Students review and evaluate the results obtained by other students in the class.
Send other possibilities to spear@sonoma.edu to be included in this listing.
[ top of page ]
Building the SSU Robotic TelescopeA paper presented by G. Spear at the International Workshop for Coordinating a Scalable and Sustainable Small Automated Telescope Network.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 25-29 2001
[ top of page ]
Contact Gordon Spear ( spear@sonoma.edu ) to add a resource to this list or to report errors or corrections.