Robotic and Remote Telescopes
Over the last decade remote observatories became very common even among amateur astronomers. Besides amateuer astronomy, they had already gained importance in semi-professional and professional astronomy before. Scientists nowadays often use so called robotic telescopes to scan the sky systematically again and again, e.g. to seek asteroids that could evolve into a potential risk. Whereas remote telescopes usually do not work without an operator, robotic telescopes are programmed to do their work over a long period of time fully automatically without any human.
APM Telescopes offers the know-how and the suitable hardware to realize observatories of that kind. Our heavy mounting APM GE-300 has integrated remote capabilities and can be used for such purposes. It can be fitted with a large variety of APM Professional optic/tube assemblies, e.g. our high quality astrographs. These optics can either be installed as a one-tube solution, usually desired by ambitious amateur astronomers, that want to escape mostly unstable weather conditions, or as an multiple-tube solution in an array of telescopes, which is often used for robotic telesocpes.
Robotic telescope array blueprints (8 × APM 400mm f/2.8 Astrograph)
But robotic and remote telescopes consist of more than just the optical assembly and the mounting. Many other parts are necessary to make a telescope a perfectly functional remote device. These include a device for pointing the telescope to the correct position, a detector (a CCD camera) that images the sky, a motorized and controllable focuser and of course a fully operational remote observatory dome that has sensors for the detection of weather conditions.
Please contact us!