Autonomous robotic observatories can use modern communications to receive pertinent information from institutes that generate events to observe (e.g., supernovae, near-earth asteroids, gravitational lensings, and gamma-ray bursts).
This paper is addressed to astronomers who are not specialists in computer science. We give explanations of some basic and advanced protocols to receive events and how to implement them in a robotic observatory software. We describe messages such as GCN notices, VOEvents or RTML, and protocols such as CGI, HTTP, SOAP, RSS, and XMPP.

Alain Klotz

Protocols for Robotic Telescope Networks

Since May 2006, the two STELLA robotic telescopes at the Iza&#241;a observatory
in Tenerife, Spain, delivered an almost uninterrupted stream of scientific data.
To achieve such a high level of autonomous operation, the replacement of all
troubleshooting skills of a regular observer in software was required. Care
must be taken on error handling issues and on robustness of the algorithms
used. In the current paper, we summarize the approaches we followed in the
STELLA observatory.

Thomas Granzer

Michael Weber

Klaus G. Strassmeier

Three Years of Experience with the STELLA Robotic Observatory

During the last years, a number of telescopes have been dedicated to the followup of the GRBs. But after the Swift launch, the average observed intensity of the GRBs showed to be lower than thought before. Our experience with the robotic 60&#x2009;cm REM telescope confirmed this evidence, with a large number of <i>lost</i> GRBs. Then, we proposed to study the feasibility of a 4&#x2009;m fast pointing class telescope,  equipped with a multichannel imagers, from Visible to Near Infrared.
In this paper, we present the main result of the feasibility study we performed so far.

Fabrizio Vitali

Guido Chincarini

Mario Zannoni

Stefano Covino

Emilio Molinari

Stefano Benetti

Carlotta Bonoli

Favio Bortoletto

Enrico Cascone

Rosario Cosentino

Francesco D'Alessio

Paolo D'Avanzo

Vincenzo De Caprio

Massimo Della Valle

Alberto Fernandez-Soto

Dino Fugazza

Enrico Giro

Demetrio Magrin

Giuseppe Malaspina

Lech Mankiewicz

Raffaella Margutti

Ruben Mazzoleni

Luciano Nicastro

Alberto Riva

Marco Riva

Ruben Salvaterra

Paolo Span&#xf2;

Monica Sperandio

Mauro Stefanon

Gino Tosti

Vincenzo Testa

A Path to the Stars: The Evolution of the Species

The Antarctic Multiband Infrared Camera (AMICA) is a double channel camera operating in the 2&#x2013;28&#x2009;<svg style="vertical-align:-2.29482pt;width:9.6374998px;" id="M1" height="9.6750002" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 9.6374998 9.6750002" width="9.6374998"  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
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</svg>m infrared domain (KLMNQ bands) that will allow to characterize and exploit the exceptional advantages for Astronomy, expected from Dome C in Antarctica. The development of the camera control system is at its final stage. After the investigation of appropriate solutions against the critical environment, a reliable instrumentation has been developed. It is currently being integrated and tested to ensure the correct execution of automatic operations. Once it will be mounted on the International Robotic Antarctic Infrared Telescope (IRAIT), AMICA and its equipment will contribute to the accomplishment of a fully autonomous observatory.

Gianluca Di Rico

Maurizio Ragni

Mauro Dolci

Oscar Straniero

Angelo Valentini

Gaetano Valentini

Amico Di Cianno

Croce Giuliani

Maurizio D&#39;Alessandro

Leonardo Corcione

Autonomous Observations in Antarctica with AMICA

To study short stochastic optical flares of different objects (GRBs, SNs, etc.) of
unknown localizations as well as NEOs it is necessary to monitor large regions
of sky with high-time resolution. We developed a system consisting of widefield
camera with field of view of 400–600 sq.deg. which uses TV-CCD with
0.13 s temporal resolution to record and classify optical transients, and a fast
robotic telescope aimed to perform their spectroscopic and photometric investigation
just after detection. Such two-telescope complex, combining wide-field
camera TORTORA and robotic telescope REM, operated from May 2006 at
La Silla ESO observatory. Some results of its operation, including first high
time resolution study of optical transient accompanying GRB and discovery
of its fine time structure, are presented. Also, prospects for improving the
efficiency of such observations are given, and a project of a next generation
wide field monitoring system, the MegaTORTORA, is described.

Grigory Beskin

Sergey Bondar

Sergey Karpov

Vladimir Plokhotnichenko

Adriano Guarnieri

Corrado Bartolini

Giuseppe Greco

Adalberto Piccioni

Andrew Shearer

From TORTORA to MegaTORTORA—Results and Prospects of Search for Fast Optical Transients

The detection of short optical transients of astrophysical origin in real time is an important task for existing robotic telescopes. The faster a new optical transient is detected, the earlier follow-up observations can be started. The sooner the object is identified, the more data can be collected before the source fades away, particularly in the most interesting early period of the transient. In this the real-time pipeline designed for identification of optical flashes with the “Pi of the Sky” project will be presented in detail together with solutions used by other experiments.

Marcin Soko&#x0142;owski

Katarzyna Ma&#x0142;ek

Lech W. Piotrowski

Grzegorz Wrochna

Automated Detection of Short Optical Transients of Astrophysical Origin in Real Time

We report on optical observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) followed
up by our collaboration with the 1.23&#x02009;m telescope located at the Calar Alto
observatory. The 1.23&#x02009;m telescope is an old facility, currently undergoing upgrades
to enable fully autonomous response to GRB alerts. We discuss the
current status of the control system upgrade of the 1.23&#x02009;m telescope. The upgrade
is being done by our group based on the Remote Telescope System,
2nd Version (RTS2), which controls the available instruments and interacts
with the EPICS database of Calar Alto. (Our group is called ARAE (Robotic Astronomy &#38; High-Energy Astrophysics) and
is based on members of IAA (Instituto de Astrof&#237;sica de Andaluc&#237;a). Currently the
ARAE group is responsible to develop the BOOTES network of robotic telescopes
(Jel&#237;nek et al. 2009).) Currently the telescope can run fully
autonomously or under observer supervision using RTS2. The fast reaction response
mode for GRB reaction (typically with response times below 3 minutes
from the GRB onset) still needs some development and testing. The telescope
is usually operated in legacy interactive mode, with periods of supervised autonomous
runs under RTS2. We show the preliminary results of several GRBs
followed up with observer intervention during the testing phase of the 1.23&#x02009;m
control software upgrade.

Javier Gorosabel

Petr Kub&#225;nek

Martin Jel&#237;nek

Alberto J. Castro-Tirado

Antonio de Ugarte Postigo

Sebasti&#225;n Castillo-Carri&#243;n

Sergey Guziy

Ronan Cunniffe

Matilde Fern&#225;ndez

Nuria Hu&#233;lamo

V&#237;ctor Terr&#243;n

Nicol&#225;s Morales

Jos&#233; Luis Ortiz

Stefano Mottola

Uri Carsenty

Recent GRBs Observed with the 1.23&#x02009;m CAHA Telescope and the Status of Its Upgrade

The paper deals with the description of a new concept for a spherical mechanism for agile telescopes. It is based on redundantly actuated parallel kinematical structure. Due to the three times overactuated structure and application of several further innovative concepts, the Hexasphere achieves the movability of <svg style="vertical-align:-0.3003pt;width:10.1px;" id="M1" height="9.5625" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 10.1 9.5625" width="10.1" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g transform="matrix(.017,-0,0,-.017,.062,9.125)"><path id="xB1" d="M535 290h-212v-206h-58v206h-213v50h213v193h58v-193h212v-50zM535 -22h-483v50h483v-50z" /></g></svg>100 degrees. This enables the use of a Hexasphere as the basis for mounts of telescopes. Such telescopes can be optimized for minimum weight or for maximum dynamics. The proposed mechanism is expected to play a role in novel robotic telescopes nowadays used in many fields of astronomy and astrophysics, with emphasis on automated systems for alert observations of celestial gamma-ray bursts.

Michael Valasek

Josef Zicha

Martin Karasek

Rene Hudec

Hexasphere—Redundantly Actuated Parallel Spherical Mechanism as
a New Concept of Agile Telescope

We describe the New Mexico State University (NMSU) 1 m telescope located at the Apache Point Observatory (APO), and in particular, its robotic mode of operation. Some of the issues we have encountered may be of interest to others developing similar facilities. This telescope provides a good example of the possibilities of locating a moderate-sized university robotic research telescope at a major observatory. We find that this mode of operation provides a significant amount of productive science data on a relatively small budget.

Jon A. Holtzman

Thomas E. Harrison

Jeffrey L. Coughlin

The NMSU 1 m Telescope at Apache Point Observatory

We discuss the role of robotic telescopes in satellite projects, as well as related strategies. Most satellite projects in space astrophysics focus on high-energy astrophysics from X-rays to gamma-rays. A large fraction of objects of high-energy astrophysics emit also optical light, which is, in many cases, variable. The observation of these sources at optical wavelengths can provide valuable inputs for multispectral analysis of various categories of celestial high-energy (HE) sources. As the magnitudes of numerous objects are bright and can be hence accessed by robotic ground-based observatories, these observations can contribute to investigations and analyses of HE sources. We discuss in detail this possible contribution, with emphasis on the ESA <i>INTEGRAL</i> mission. In addition to this, there are also satellite projects outside the high-energy astronomy, in which the robotic telescopes can also play an important role. We will illustrate this on the example of the ESA satellite <i>Gaia</i>. In this project, robotic telescopes are expected not only to verify the triggers detected by satellite (such as transients and flares) but also to provide additional (mostly photometric) data for better scientific cases.

R. Hudec

The Role of Ground-Based Robotic Observatories in Satellite Projects

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