1. Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe:
A Joint VOEvent & HTN Workshop @
The University of Arizona in
Tucson
4-7 June 2007
Frank Breitling
fbreitling at aip.de
Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

2. Overview Introduction Robotic Telescopes of the AIP Grid Architecture
User Interfaces
Summary
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

3. Introduction: Astrophysical Institute Potsdam(
located in Potsdam, 30 km west of Berlin, Germany, near the beautiful Schloßpark Babelsberg
not Max-Planck but
long history, founded as the “Berliner Sternwarte” in 1711 e.g. Schwarzschild was once the director
edits the worlds oldest astro-nomical journal that is still being published since (journal for this proceedings)
involved in many international projects (e.g. XMM-Newton, LBT, ICE-T, LOFAR, AstroGrid-D)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

4. Introduction: The AstroGrid-D Project
AstroGrid-D is
the name of the German Astronomy Community Grid
a collaboration of 14 German institutes (20 people x 3 years) under the leadership of the AIP
funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research
part of the D-Grid
AstroGrid-D pursues the
development of a network of
robotic telescopes
using grid technology.
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

5. Introduction: Why grid technology?
A grid provides what is needed for a robotic telescope-network
virtual organization (VO) management
manage the access of collaborations to telescopes
resource management
integration and monitoring of the individual telescopes
job management
scheduling or canceling of observations
data management - immediate access to the data
metadata management
information about what is going on in the network
immediate access to compute and storage resources of the grid
for subsequent data analysis
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

6. Robotic telescopes: Robotel
AIP, Potsdam, Germany (80m asl)
0.8m telescope
CCD Camera for imaging and photometry
Objectives
Education, 50% of observation time is dedicated to schools and universities
Testing of new instruments, software and methods for Stella-I & Stella-II
developed, owned and operated by the AIP!
Robotel in its dome at the AIP
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

7. Robotic telescopes: Stella-I & Stella-II
Teide Observatory, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain (2480m)
Two 1.2m telescopes
Instruments
Spectrograph (operating since May 2006)
Imaging photometer (commissioning in fall 2007)
Scientific Objectives
Doppler imaging
Search for extrasolar planets
Spectroscopic surveys
Simultaneous observations with larger facilities
developed, owned and operated by the AIP!
Stella-I and Stella-II at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. The shelter is opened as for observation.
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

8. Robotic telescopes: Wolfgang(T6)& Amadeus(T7)
Fairborn Observatory*, Patagonia, Arizona, USA, (1600m asl)
Two 0.75m telescopes
Photoelectric photometry
Scientific Objectives
study variability timescales and life times of starspots, i.e. photometric long-term monitoring of stars over years
Support other observations
operated by the AIP!
Fairborn observatory, building 2 with open roof showing telescopes T5 (background) through T8 (foreground).
*The Fairborn Observatory is a non-profit corporation dedicated to advancement of automated astronomy (
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

9. Robotic telescopes: Stella Control System
Sequencer
Scheduler
CCD
Spectrograph
Adapter
Telescope
sequence
definition
object
database
command
templates
target
commands
to physical
devices via
TCP/IP or RMI
description
The Stella Control System (SCS)
is used for Stella-I & II and Robotel
developed at the AIP (T. Granzer)
is a Java-RMI based controller software
has an interactive and automatic operation mode
has simulation mode for testing and development (e.g. of the grid- integration)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

10. Grid Architecture: Overview
Computer
Center
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
Information Server
Stellaris
SPARQL
Data
AIP
Observer's
Office
Robotel
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
globusrun-ws
RTML
target
RTML
target
SCS
Workstation
Globus Toolkit
Telescope Server
Globus Toolkit
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

11. Grid Architecture: Overview
Extension to a Network by
- introducing a scheduler
- adding more telescopes
Computer
Center
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
RDF
Metadata
Information Server
Stellaris
SPARQL
Data
AIP
Observer's
Office
Robotel
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
RTML
target
globusrun-ws
RTML
target
RTML
target
SCS
Scheduler Server
Globus Toolkit
Telescope Server
Globus Toolkit
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

12. Grid Architecture: Grid Middleware
which provides
Job management:
WS GRAM (Grid Resource and Allocation Manager) with web service interface through endpoint reference (EPR)
An elementary set of grid commands for the job management, interactive access to resources and file transfer (globusrun-ws -submit / -status / -cancle, gsissh, gsiftp)
Resource monitoring
Virtual Organization (VO) management which is adapted by the AIP (VOMRS)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

13. Grid Architecture: RTML
Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML)
XML format defined through RMTL schema: sw.gwdg.de/XMLSchema/RTML/schemas/RTML-nightly.xsd
provides description of elementary static and dynamic metadata (e.g. telescope hardware, setup and status, source catalogs, observation requests, observation history, schedules, weather information)
standard defined by the Heterogeneous Telescope Network (HTN)
adopted in AstroGrid-D
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

14. Grid Architecture: Information Service
Stellaris
development of AstroGrid-D by the ZIB (M. Högqvist)
available at (Apache License)
is used by AstroGrid-D for
grid resource monitoring (e.g. compute resources, telescopes)
job monitoring
tested and runs stable
metadata is exchanged and stored in RDF
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

15. Grid Architecture: RDF
RDF (Resource Description Framework)
standard for storing information
is based on graph theory
it presents information in triples as
different formats exist
RDF/XML (W3C recommendation)
Notation 3 (N3) (W3C specification)
is a development of the semantic web
the SPARQL query language exists for retrieval of RDF information
Subject
Object
Predicate
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

16. Grid Architecture: RDF graph
example of a partial RDF graph
represents the location information of Stella-I (static metadata) g e n i d : U D X p K E w 3 4 2 8 m t r s 5 7 6
Izana Observatory, Teneriffa, E 1 9 .
Obtained with W3C RDF Validation Service (
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

17. Grid Architecture: XSLT
for Stellaris a conversion from RTML documents into RDF required
developed an XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) at AIP
can transform arbitrary XML files into RDF/XML format (e.g. RTML)
usage very simple, only two command line programs
xsltproc
cURL for uploading to Stellaris
available at (Apache License)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

18. User Interfaces: SPARQL
SPARQL Query Language for RDF (W3C working draft)
is the counterpart for re-trieving information from RDF
simple syntax for selected and sorted retrieval of information
Perl modules exist for the integration into Perl scripts
SPARQL web browser interface is implemented into Stellaris for a quick lookup of information
The Stellaris SPARQL query interface for a web bowser. The SPARQL query retrieves the geographic location of all available telescopes sorted by their altitude.
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

19. User Interfaces: Telescope Map
Web browser user interface
Developed in AstroGrid-D by the ZIB (M. Högqvist) and AIP (F. Breitling)
to access and display telescope metadata
Based on Google Maps and SPARQL
available at grid.org/ (Apache License)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

20. User Interfaces: Job Monitoring
Web browser user interface
Developed in AstroGrid-D by the ZIB (M. Högqvist) & AIP (F. Breitling)
currently used to display job-state metadata
Based on „Simile“ Timeline
like Google Maps for time- based information
a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time- based events.
available at (Apache License)
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

21. Summary: Achievements
five robotic telescopes of the AIP are already operating robotically and are ready for network-operation
an architecture for the grid integration has been developed
an information service is ready
metadata of telescopes and observations can be provided
user interfaces are available for accessing the metadata
the implementation of the Globus job management using WS GRAM is currently under development
tests using the original Stella Control System are ongoing
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes

22. Summary: Next steps providing dynamic metadata
e.g. telescope states, weather information, recorded data
developing a versatile scheduler which uses
static metadata, e.g. capabilities of telescopes, location
dynamic metadata, e.g. weather information, target visibilities, observation schedules
multiple telescopes
testing of a simulated and a real network
first network observations
show that it works well
participate in campaigns with other networks
University of Arizona in Tucson, June
Hot-wiring the Transient Universe
Grid-Integration of Robotic Telescopes