A Target of Opportunity Observing System for NOAO Rob Seaman Data Products Program 29 April 2008

Astronomy is many disciplines  From Solar System to Galaxy to Cosmos  From Big Bang to current epoch  From gigayear stasis to explosive detonation  Physics in extreme regimes  Earth’s broadest context  Civilization’s ultimate master

Diverse Observing modes  Classical observing  Queue scheduled  Survey campaigns  Service staffing  Remote staffing  Kibitzing modes  Robotic observing  All share autonomous trends (power tools)

Experimental design  Observations serve empirical purpose(s)  Archival science is not different  Philosophical issues can’t be ducked:  What is a detection?  What is an object?  What is a process?  Software can help or hinder

Astronomical lifecycle  Ask question  Design experiment  Submit observing proposal  Scheduling constraints  Observing run preparation  Pick an observing mode  Transport data (or VO equivalent)

Astronomical lifecycle 2  Reduce data  Analyze results in context  Deduce science  Publish to the community  Publish to the public  Ask new questions…

Time domain  Can’t afford the cycle overhead  Must speed up by several orders of mag. but also…  Schedule is no longer a free parameter  Preparation must be complete & explicit  Context is everything (sample selection)  Competition is fierce  Thus need new observing mode

Celestial Transient Events Aitoff projection

VOEvent protocol  IVOA standard  Describe celestial transient events  XML message format  Transport neutral  In coordination with Heterogeneous Telescope Network (HTN)

 - provenance  - observations  - space/time localization  - instrument configuration  - semantic characterization  - empirical threads

Many VOEvent projects  VO-GCN (Phil, Mike, Caltech, Cal, GSFC)  VOEventNet (Caltech, NOAO, LANL, Cal)  HTN (LCOGT, eSTAR, etc.)  CBAT/MPC/AAVSO/ATEL  GCN/SNEWS/…  NOAO Surveys  NOAO ToO

SIE 554/654 project  System Engineering Process  Use Case driven  SysML  SIE grad student team:  Victor Tenorio (mining)  Ana Catalina Kottman  Anabel Rodriguez  Shahzad Patel (Fall ‘07)

System Engineering Plan

Trade-off studies