Open-Design for a Smart Cover of a Night-Time Telescope for Day-Time Use

Abstract

Robotic observatories are ideal infrastructures that can be remotely accessed by scientists, amateurs, and general public for research and education in Astronomy. Its robotization is a complex process for ensuring autonomy, safety, and coordination among all subsystems. Some observatories, such as Francisco Sanchez’s, are equipped with two types of telescopes: one for the night and one for the day. The night-time telescope must be protected from exposure to sunlight in order to use them in an automated way. For this purpose, this article proposes the design and construction of a smart cover that opens and closes according to the time of day. The mechatronic design covers the electronic, mechanical, and software programming, and it has been devised taking while taking the principles of open design, ease of reproduction, low-cost, and smart behaviour into account. The design has been parameterized, so that it can be adapted to telescopes of any size. The final prototype is lightweight, cost-effective, and can be built while using common 3D printing and PCB milling machines. The complete design is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 and all the documentation, schematics, and software are available in public repositories, like Zenodo, GitHub, and Instructables.

A Complete Affordable Control System for Remote Astronomical Observing Accompanied by an Intelligent Controller

“…Dome synchronization is a crucial process in observation; it means positioning the dome slit at a specific angular point aligned with the telescope's optical axis to provide sight to the sky [49]. Auspiciously, our telescope mounts support base is established at the center of the dome; subsequently, the φ is equal to the telescope azimuth (ϕ), referring to Eq.…”

“…Meanwhile, the SBIG and monitoring cameras are connected via the ETHERNET protocol. The monitoring cameras consist of two movable web cameras with infrared (IR) to quickly check the dome and devices inside the observatory as it is necessary for remote observation [49]. It is evident that occupying all PC ports reduces the efficiency of operation; thus, the master unit handles all dome control units wireless via RF.…”