Bibcode
Fredslund Andersen, M.; Handberg, R.; Weiss, E.; Frandsen, S.; Simón-Díaz, S.; Grundahl, F.; Pallé, P.
Bibliographical reference
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 131, Issue 998, pp. 045003 (2019).
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4
2019
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Description
We present a description of “the Conductor,” an automated
software package that handles all observations at the first Stellar
Observations Network Group (SONG) node telescope at the Teide
Observatory on the island of Tenerife. The idea was to provide a
complete description on the automated procedures for target selection
and execution of observations and to demonstrate how the SONG robotic
telescope is being operated. The Conductor is a software package
developed in Python and running on a server in Aarhus that makes use of
a large set of database tables through which it communicates with the
SONG nodes. Based on a number of selection criteria the Conductor is
able to identify the optimum target to be observed at any given moment,
taking into account local weather conditions and technical constraints.
The Conductor has made it possible for the Hertzsprung SONG telescope to
become a highly sophisticated and efficient robotic telescopic facility
without human interaction. It can handle everything from principal
investigators submitting their proposed targets with specific settings,
to the data being available for download after the observations has been
carried out. At present, and thanks to the availability of the
Conductor, the first node of the SONG project can be considered a world
leading robotic telescope with respect to needed human interactions,
efficiency, and flexibility in observing strategy.
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