This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 12186 including the Title Page, Copywrite information, and Table of Contents.

The NASA Exoplanet Archive recently reached a major milestone – 5000 known exoplanets. In thirty years, the field has exploded from an oddball set of detections around a pulsar to a Nobel-prize winning assortment of brand new worlds, bursting with colour and personality and mystery. In this talk I will review the NASA Exoplanet Archive, its holdings and data discovery tools, as well as look ahead to the next decade of planet discovery, and how we can prepare for the continued exponential rise and rise of exoplanets.

The ongoing improvement and implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) best practices at facilities managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) remains a key initiative driven by employees and management alike. AURA, as a leader in the astronomical community, develops and supports programs that advance our organizational commitment to diversity, broadens participation, and encourages the advancement of diversity throughout the astronomical scientific workforce.

As diversity continues to grow in astronomy, creating working environments that are equally beneficial to all employees is imperative. Internal climate surveys and official representation confirm we need to maintain and reinforce the efforts in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (EDI). Since 2017, ESO has created its EDI Committee gathering a variety of employees from the different sites, with different backgrounds. We will focus here on the most recent updates from the EDI ESO goals and values, and on the effective strategy to develop a skilled and diverse operational workforce across the different operational sites, and particularly in Paranal Observatory.

When the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP) comes online, observing proposals will be required to include a Research Inclusion (RI) Plan to apply for telescope time, in which aspects of equity, diversity and inclusion of a project are judged alongside science and data management plans. However, we recognize that PIs are unlikely to be adept at writing adequate RI plans. To mediate this tension, US-ELTP’s RI Initiative is developing a Collaborative Toolkit that provides the astronomical community with a framework for building and metrics for assessing collaborative partnerships. The RI Collaborative Toolkit will benefit proposers by providing the tools and expertise to develop good, meaningful inclusion plans. The RI Toolkit will also benefit reviewers by providing recommendations for how to assess the inclusivity of research proposals. In this presentation, we discuss the structure of and topics covered in the RI Toolkit.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is entering the final stage of construction, system integration, and validation. This is a very exciting and challenging phase of the life of an observatory. This phase requires a healthy workplace culture due to the significant pressure staff members may feel when trying to finish a project on schedule. At the Rubin Observatory, we value people’s diversity of experience, expertise, and perspective. We strive to have an inclusive, respectful, and fruitful collaboration between all our Rubin project personnel. Allies at Rubin work towards developing and maintaining a positive workplace culture that strives to increase motivation, improve happiness and satisfaction, and thus retains and attracts a diverse and talented workforce. We expect to continue these efforts in the transition to full survey operations and beyond. This paper describes initiatives that staff in the Rubin project have taken to achieve these goals.

With the release in August 2021 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sixth assessment report1 , the crisis of climate change is irrefutable and the critical need for action to address it has gained broad support throughout the global community. As stewards of the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea and considering our place in our island community and the global community, it is important that we lay the groundwork for examining sustainability measures, attainable goals and viable paths to meet those goals. This paper presents a methodology for viewing and measuring one aspect of the sustainability challenge which can inform the development of a sustainability strategy for WMKO. One of the most notable challenges facing the global community is realizing a significant reduction in greenhouse gases which are contributing to accelerating climate change and increasing probability of extreme weather events. We present an understanding of the key contributors to WMKO’s carbon footprint, initial estimates of what that footprint was for 2019 and some opportunities and next steps towards developing and executing on a plan to reduce it over the coming decade.

Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the first of the future generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic facilities. MSE is designed to enable transformative science, being completely dedicated to large-scale multi-object spectroscopic surveys. MSE’s conceptual design includes an 11.25 m aperture telescope which feeds 4,332 fibers over a wide 1.52 square degree field of view. Its spectrographs will have the capabilities to observe at a range of spectral resolutions, from R~3,000 to R~40,000, with all spectral resolutions available at all times and across the entire field. As a dedicated survey facility, MSE must be able to efficiently execute a wide variety of scientific programs at the same time. Here we describe continued planning to execute MSE’s Design Reference Survey, an exercise to plan for and simulate a sample of potential first-generation science programs that exercise the design parameters of the spectroscopic facility.

Two major contributors to the overall seeing that degrades astronomical images are turbulence from the atmosphere and turbulence within the telescope dome structure. Dome seeing generally contributes less than 1 arcsec to the overall seeing. However, most existing telescope domes have not been characterized for dome seeing; there is an opportunity to significantly improve the overall seeing by optimizing the dome seeing. An instrument that measures a proxy to dome seeing was installed at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. The instrument is based on a similar ’dome seeing monitor’ built and tested by Bustos and Tokovinin for the 4 m Blanco telescope in 2018. The instrument consists of a collimated laser beam that propagates from the AAT’s primary mirror box, reflects off a flat mirror on the secondary strut, back down to the primary mirror box, and is imaged by a camera. The angle-of-arrival fluctuations are used to derive the seeing proxy in arcsec. Meteorology is recorded in parallel to the dome seeing proxy, including inside, outside, and mirror temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, and telescope azimuth and elevation. These meteorology variables were tested for correlation to the dome seeing proxy. There are 77 nights worth of data, spanning from August 2021 to May 2022. The highly correlated variables were the outdoor/indoor and indoor/mirror temperature difference, the wind speed and humidity. Poorly correlated variables include the wind-to-dome slit angle, the sky/ambient temperature difference and elevation. Thermal convection conditions were found to significantly affect the dome-seeing-proxy compared to thermal inversion conditions.

SALT is a 10-m class optical telescope located in Sutherland, South Africa, owned by an international consortium and operated in fully queue-scheduled mode by the South African Astronomical Observatory. In this paper we present an update on all observatory performance metrics since the start of full science operations in late 2011, including science time, weather and technical downtime, and time used for planned engineering activities and commissioning. We analyze key statistics describing the science output of SALT, the completion fractions of scheduled observations and programs per priority class, and analyze the more than 400 refereed papers to date since first light based on SALT data. We discuss our latest telescope metrics and the results of our analysis of acquisition times, what steps we are taking to make significant improvements to our metrics such as virtual visits to the HET, new quick-look software and queue scheduler, the development of a new metrics dashboard and pre-positioning of the guide probes. We also discuss the usage of the SALT Data Archive and plans to ensure compatibility with the Virtual Observatory. Some of these projects, along with the latest developments in software, instrumentation and engineering projects, are presented in detail in other SPIE papers. The SALT refereed paper output has increased steadily since 2017 - when counted from the start of science operations, we show that the trend is still following other 6-10 m observatories (when scaled by the number of telescopes). When scaled by operations costs (where known), SALT is still clearly very cost-effective compared to most other large telescope operations. Our main workhorse instrument, the RSS spectrograph, still produces the largest number of papers and dominates our best conditions queue (i.e. dark time, best seeing, photometric conditions). HRS publications have been steadily increasing since its arrival in 2016, with the HRS having essentially taken over the bright moon and poorer conditions queue. Spectropolarimetry has also become a more widely used mode. Our Fabry-Pérot system, though, has fallen victim to Covid19 and is still awaiting repairs. We also discuss the exciting arrival to SALT of the Near IR spectrograph, which achieved first light on sky on the 8th July 2022, and our strategic vision for transient and exoplanet science in the near future. Within this context, we will briefly update on the HRS High Stability mode and MaxE, our generation 1.5 instrument, and on our plans for SALT as an important component of the SAAO in an "Intelligent Observatory" framework, which aims to network a suite of telescopes and instruments on SAAO's observing site.

Acquisition and guiding services have been provided at major telescopes in order to improve the quality and efficiency of Field Stabilization is an essential component of the Telescope Control System. With the arrival of new generation instruments, the stabilization requirements have increased. Higher correction frequency is required to minimize the residuals. A major re-engineering of the CCD acquisition software now enables an increase of the operational frequency from 25 to 87Hz. In this paper we analyze and discuss the performances of field stabilization at various frequencies on the VLT 8m telescopes including the Adaptive 8-m telescope equipped with a deformable secondary mirror. We will report on the analysis of the residuals in function of several operational key parameters, e.g. the loop frequency, the magnitude of the selected telescope guide star, etc.. We will also discuss the possible automatization of the FS during night operations.

The ESO Science Archive is the collection and access point of the data generated at ESO’s La Silla Paranal Observatory, both raw and processed. It is a major contributor to ESO’s science output, being used in about 4 out of 10 refereed articles with ESO data. In this paper, which is presented on behalf of the operations and development teams, we review its content, policies, user interfaces and impact.

The ESO Data Processing System (EDPS) is a new software infrastructure to run the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) science data processing modules (“pipeline recipes”) that is currently in an advanced status of development. These recipes are used for quality control purposes, unsupervised production of science and calibration products for the archive, and are embedded in an interactive data reduction system that is also offered to external science users. EDPS aims to unify all these use cases and thereby replace individual dedicated systems that are currently used at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). All pipelines are based on self-contained recipes with well-defined inputs, outputs, and parameters. They are strung together into different workflows and fed with data selected by pre-defined rules. Even though the dependencies of the recipes imply an execution cascade that is identical for all use cases, the actual workflows and data selection rules for the different use cases are significantly different. EDPS will be a Python based system that generates workflows for ESO’s science data processing use cases from a general specification for the dependencies of the recipes. By starting from a single specification for different workflows, EDPS will improve the reliability and reproducible of data processing. At the same time, EDPS is expected to drastically lower implementation and maintenance costs for the workflows.

The US Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP) will enable all US astronomers to carry out transformational research that takes full advantage of the diverse capabilities of both the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) as parts of a two-hemisphere system. The US-ELT Program Platform (UPP), the NSF’s NOIRLab software suite, will provide the majority of the services to support the entire Scientific Data Life Cycle (SDLC) from submission of proposals to data reduction, analysis, and publication. We present an overview of the high-level vision for the Data Reduction and Analysis Workspace (DRAW), as well as a description of its main functionalities, that will be part of the UPP. DRAW will provide data reduction services, data analysis tools, access to databases, and other services to the scientific community, including researchers at under-resourced institutions. DRAW’s purpose is to facilitate and support the creation, archival, and curation of GMT/TMT science data products and ensure their legacy value.

To maintain and expand its scientific productivity and impact, the W. M. Keck Observatory is undertaking a new strategic project to redefine how the Observatory approaches the creation of science products: the Data Services Initiative (DSI). The philosophy of DSI is grounded in the principle that the future of astronomy requires that data must be usable, useful, and quick. Reaching these data goals requires significant changes to key elements of the observing process: observation preparation, observation execution and calibration association, data reduction, and data archiving. In this presentation, we will introduce DSI and its components, and describe the science gains that are enabled by it.

The W. M. Keck Observatory is welcoming a new era where data reduction and archiving are tightly integrated into our observing model, under the auspices of the Observatory’s Data Services Initiative (DSI) project. While previously the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) archived minimally processed, raw science data the day after observing, Keck is transitioning to a model in which it archives both raw frames and reduced data in near real-time. These data will be made available to observers and collaborators immediately upon ingestion through a dedicated new interface that will support collaboration and sharing among teams, as well as stream data directly to personal computers without access to Keck’s internal networks. Both the raw and science-ready data products will be made publicly available upon the expiration of data protections. The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) instrument is the first whose data are managed this way. It showcases how KOA integrates into an observing night, provides the data needed to make real-time adjustments to observing, and delivers products that allow for faster publication by both our observers and archival researchers. This effort has involved the delivery of new, compact, Python-based data preparation and ingestion software. We also discuss the new and updated Data Reduction Pipelines (DRPs) required to generate science-ready data, how their development and deployment enables the delivery of these products, and how Keck’s commitment to maintaining DRPs in-house will result in more robust datasets for all our observers and KOA users.

Las Cumbres Observatory global telescope (LCOGT) is a unique worldwide network of dynamically scheduled, fully robotic optical telescopes, purpose built for time domain astronomy. The LCOGT network enters its second decade of operations in 2024. A flood of transient alerts are expected from the Vera C. Rubin Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and multimessenger observatories. In 2023 LCOGT will complete the northern hemisphere 1-m telescope ring, currently four telescopes at McDonald and Teide Observatories, with the addition of two 1-m telescopes at Ali Observatory in Tibet. The southern ring is complete at the Siding Spring, Cerro Tololo and the South African Astronomical Observatories. LCOGT is an active partner in the Astrophysical Event Observatory Network (AEON) with NOIRLab facilities (Gemini Observatory, SOAR Observatory, and the Community Science and Data Center), to develop the infrastructure to efficiently carry out astronomical observations in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST era. While the global pandemic has provided multiple operational challenges, hardware and software projects currently underway will make LCOGT an even more powerful transient follow-up facility in its second decade of operations.

The era of time-domain astronomy has brought new challenges and opportunities to X-ray observational astronomy. Recent discoveries indicate that fast extragalactic X-ray transients, planetary transits, and other exotic events can be extracted from rich X-ray telescope archives. Such anomalies have distinct signatures at the time series level, changes in patterns in the arrival times and energies of photons. Event files are inherently of variable length, posing an issue for data representation for deep learning applications. We compare two data representation methods for variable-length time series data: i) 2D histograms in the time and energy domain, and ii) connected graph representation. We train regression networks to a) predict posterior moments for global summaries of each time series and b) demonstrate an anomaly detection framework for unlabeled data. Trained networks are asked to predict archival summaries for a test data set, bypassing the need for an expensive processing pipeline. Outliers beyond a threshold in the predictive residual error distribution are flagged as potential anomalies for follow-up review. We test this method on a toy on-the-fly toy simulator and proceed to an application to real Chandra archival data. We present constructed Chandra graph and histogram data sets, as well as a toy model and regression network library written differentially in JAX, open-source tools for the X-ray community to enhance archival searches.

The recent discovery of sub-second, bright, optical flashes in the night sky has generated questions about their origin. Are they all just a class of previously unknown glints from space debris? Or are some of the flashes of astrophysical origin? We discuss a stereoscopic ranging system, currently under construction, designed to detect bright flashes during a two-year observational survey and discriminate, on a flash-by-flash basis, foreground space debris glints from astrophysical flashes. The survey will enable a search for sub-second astrophysical flashes with an estimated sensitivity that is at least an order of magnitude better than existing limits.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will be the largest and most advanced ground-based facility for γ-ray astronomy. Several dozens of telescopes will be operated at both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. With the advent of multi-messenger astronomy, many new large science infrastructures will start science operations and target-of-opportunity observations will play an important role in the operation of the CTAO. The Array Control and Data Acquisition (ACADA) system deployed on each CTAO site will feature a dedicated sub-system to manage external and internal scientific alerts: the Transients Handler. It will receive, validate, and process science alerts in order to determine if target-of-opportunity observations can be triggered or need to be updated. Various tasks defined by proposal-based configurations are processed by the Transients Handler. These tasks include, among others, the evaluation of observability of targets and their correlation with known sources or objects. This contribution will discuss the concepts and design of the Transients Handler and its integration in the ACADA system.

During the last years, ESO has undertaken the re-definition of all its front-end interfaces, from the preparation and submission of observing proposals up to their final scientific review by the ESO Observing Programmes Committee (OPC). Because of its overall complexity, ESO decided to go for a staged approach, which on one hand allowed us to offer the new proposals interface as soon as it was available, but on the other hand it has been challenging us in the operational handling of two simultaneous systems, the old and the new one. In 2019, we successfully deployed the new, web-based, Phase1 user interface for proposals preparation and submission (p1ui) and in 2021 we were able to offer for the first time a web-based, proposals grading system, that supported the proposals review and Expert Panel discussions, albeit online due to the COVID19 pandemic. In this presentation, we describe the overall project, focusing on the successful deployments of the new Phase 1 User Interface (for proposals submission), of the Proposal Evaluation Interface (for the proposals review process) and their subsequent improvements, made possible by closing the loop very effectively with our users’ community. We will then conclude by presenting ESO future plans in the Phase1 area, including new proposal submission channels and new review schemes.

ESO’s La Silla Paranal Observatory uses a set of integrated tools for preparation and execution of Service and Visitor Mode (SM and VM, respectively) observations. The web interface for the observation preparation (p2) provides a versatile and robust environment for users to efficiently design their observations. The software architecture of p2 enabled implementation of new services, modeled according to the instruments’ specifications and operational standards. The automatic creation of Finding Charts is integrated within p2 and the Observation Preparation (ObsPrep) tool enables interactive observing strategy configuration including for example fine-tuning of the science field pointings, selection of blind offset and guide stars as well as selection of auxiliary stars for instruments using Adaptive Optics. Through the Visitor Execution Sequence, observers can plan and monitor in real-time their (on-site or remote) observations. For Service Mode runs the use of scheduling containers, recently extended to include nesting of containers, enables design of complex observing strategies that are machine readable, which allows programmatic preparation of short term scheduling for execution and planning of the night at the observatory.

To efficiently provide access to proposals containing dozens or hundreds of blocks, the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) has completely redone its browser-based proposal viewing tool. It now comes with a RESTful API allowing users not only to retrieve proposal content, make status changes and estimate observation probabilities, but also to programmatically submit proposals, with finding charts created automatically. One of its goals is compatibility with the Astronomical Event Observatory Network (AEON). It also constitutes an important step towards integration with the South African Astronomical Observatory’s Intelligent Observatory. The API is realized with FastAPI, the frontend with Angular. Tests use real data without compromising confidentiality.

OARPAF (Osservatorio Astronomico Regionale Parco Antola Comune di Fascia, Italy) hosts an 80cm Astelco telescope with a Gambato Dome, SBIG-STX camera, Davis weather station, and SBIG AllSky camera. We present a layer-structured python3 framework to control these devices. Layer 1 provides straightforward getter/ setter interface for “atomic” operations on devices. Layer 2 wraps the above mentioned atomic operations into “ESO-style” Templates, to perform sequences of common pointing, observation, and calibration operations called “Observation Blocks” (OBs) that are run by a sequencer. Layer 3 is a REST API based on HTTP verbs to expose methods that control Layer 1 devices and Layer 2. We also present a web interface built on top of this layer. The work is part of the frame for remoting and robotizing the observatory.

Introducing the open-source Observatory Control System (OCS) project, which aims to provide a suite of software for managing the user-facing operations of an observatory. It includes applications for managing users and proposals, requesting and scheduling observations, and storing and accessing data products. The OCS applications are fully API-driven for core functionality, and consist of a Python Django backend with VueJS frontend (where applicable) and a set of accompanying Python libraries. Using the OCS, observatories can enjoy seamless integration with the Astronomical Event Observatory Network (AEON) initiative. The core of the project consists of the Observation Portal, which provides user account and observational request life-cycle management, and the Configuration Database, which defines the capabilities of telescopes and instruments at the observatory. The OCS provides a fully functional adaptive scheduler and science archive, while its modular architecture allows them to be substituted for solutions specific to a given observatory. A flexible observation request language is employed which is suitable for a wide-range of telescope and instrument types. The OCS project applications are currently in use at Las Cumbres Observatory (LCOGT), managing a network of 25 telescopes, thousands of users and their proposals, and millions of observations.

In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of satellites in Low-Earth Orbit and this trend is set to continue. The large number of satellites increases the probability that one will enter the field of view of a ground-based telescope at the right solar angle to appear bright enough that it can corrupt delicate measurements. We present a new tool, Astrosat, that will project satellite orbits onto the RA/DEC coordinate system for a given observer location and time and field of view. This enables observers to mitigate the effects of satellite trails through their images by either avoiding the intersection, post-processing using the information as a prior or shuttering the observation for the duration of the transit.

In recent years, time domain astronomy has become an active research area. Thanks to its low cost and moderate observation ability, wide field small aperture telescopes are commonly used to observe celestial objects for time domain astronomy. We would use several wide field small aperture telescopes to form an array to observe celestial objects continuously. Because there are many celestial objects for telescope arrays to observe, such as obtaining positions or magnitudes of celestial objects or discovering new transients, it would be necessary to investigate an optimal control strategy to maximize their scientific outputs. To achieve this target, we need to make trade-offs between observations of different targets and define appropriate tasks for each telescope. In this paper, we propose a framework, which includes a simulator and a reinforcement learning based algorithm, to obtain optimal control strategy for wide field small aperture telescope arrays, according to predefined scientific requirements. Our method could achieve better performance than ordinary sky survey strategies and has good generalization ability after training.

The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is an integral field spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope Unit Telescope 4, capable of laser guide star assisted and tomographic adaptive optics using the GALACSI module. Its observing capabilities include a wide field (1 square arcmin), ground layer AO mode (WFM-AO) and a narrow field (7.5”×7.5”), laser tomography AO mode (NFM-AO). The latter has had several upgrades in the 4 years since commissioning, including an optimization of the control matrices for the AO system and a new sub-electron noise detector for its infra-red low order wavefront sensor. We set out to quantify the NFM-AO system performance by analysing ∼230 spectrophotometric standard star observations taken over the last 3 years. To this end we expand upon previous work, designed to facilitate analysis of the WFM-AO system performance. We briefly describe the framework that will provide a user friendly, semi-automated way for system performance monitoring during science operations. We provide the results of our performance analysis, chiefly through the measured Strehl ratio and full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the core of the point spread function (PSF) using two PSF models, and correlations with atmospheric conditions. These results will feed into a range of applications, including providing a more accurate prediction of the system performance as implemented in the exposure time calculator, and the associated optimization of the scientific output for a given set of limiting atmospheric conditions.

There exists a fundamental link between data quality, system performance and environmental conditions. An end-to-end data driven monitoring approach allows for better system understanding and opens the door for more efficient root cause investigations when anomalies occur. To prepare for future operations, Paranal is establishing a dedicated data & system analysis framework, to investigate different operational scenarios, and test new techniques and technologies. With industry partners we are exploring the best data infrastructure suited for multi-site, multi-instrument operations to achieve reliable and robust data access for operations. By increasing system understanding we are paving the way to fully integrated operations.

4MOST is a wide-field, high-multiplex, fibre-fed spectrograph, which will be mounted on the ESO VISTA telescope. High- and low-redshift surveys, targeting stars, galaxies, and AGN, can be executed in parallel, populating all the available 2436 fibers. Here, we present the 4MOST calibration plan, concentrating on the unique features dictated by the design of the instrument. These include the night-time backillumination of the fibers for precise metrology, simultaneous calibrations by dedicated fibers, attached night-time flatfield and wavelength calibration via a laser driven light source with a Fabry Perot etalon (FPE) on a moving carriage, and the observations of benchmark, telluric, and radial velocity standards for the science cross-calibration between 4MOST and complementary surveys from other telescopes.

Las Cumbres Observatory comprises 25 robotic telescopes hosting 6 instrument types at 7 sites. To manage the calibrations for such a large suite of instruments, LCO has developed a Target and Observation Manager (TOM) built on elements of the TOM Toolkit. In the Calibration-TOM, the fundamental assets to be managed are not astronomical targets (as with a TOM built for a science campaign) but the telescopes and instruments of the observatory. The Calibration-TOM is a web application that uses python code within a Django framework. Requests for recurring, nighttime calibrations are described by dynamic cadences, which are inserted into each instrument’s schedule with specified durations. In 2021, we began using the Calibration-TOM for observations of flux and RV standards for the NRES spectrographs, as well as for observations of photometric standards for all imagers. The Calibration-TOM makes the scheduling and outcomes of calibrations more transparent to operations personnel, expediting the identification of underperforming instruments. Other observatories supporting multiple instruments may benefit from creating similar TOM software.

The pointing calibration of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) is often a technological challenge: their cameras are not designed for imaging the stars in the Field of View (FoV) and this prevents from using the standard astrometry of the focal plane for monitoring the pointing of the instrument. A common solution is to adopt auxiliary optical devices aligned with the line-of-sight of the telescope but, in order to avoid systematic errors, a pointing strategy considering also the signal from the Cherenkov camera is desirable, especially when a dual-mirror optical configuration is adopted. In this contribution, we present a new custom astrometry technique that we developed for the Cherenkov camera of ASTRI telescopes, using the so-called Variance method: an ancillary output data-flow owning the possibility to image the stellar component of the Night Sky Background with relatively good sensitivity (limiting magnitude ∼7). Despite the large angular size of Cherenkov camera pixels (∼11 ′′) and their relatively small number (a few thousand), our automatic astrometric routine is able to identify the stars in the FoV with sub-pixel precision, giving the possibility of monitoring the pointing of the telescope in real-time, without any additional hardware. Our technique has been already tested on archive data taken with the ASTRI-Horn prototype telescope, located in Italy, and it will be implemented in the incoming ASTRI Mini-Array: a facility of 9 identical Cherenkov telescopes under construction in Tenerife (Canary Islands). In this contribution we discuss the features of this novel procedure, its potentialities, and how they will enhance the scientific accuracy of future ASTRI telescopes.

The Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre (OAJ†1 ) in Spain is a young astronomical facility, conceived and developed from the beginning as a fully automated observatory with the main goal of optimizing the processes in the scientific and general operation of the Observatory. The OAJ has been particularly conceived for carrying out large sky surveys with two unprecedented telescopes of unusually large fields of view (FoV): the JST/T250, a 2.55m telescope of 3deg field of view, and the JAST/T80, an 83cm telescope of 2deg field of view. The most immediate objective of the two telescopes for the next years is carrying out two unique photometric surveys of several thousands square degrees, J-PAS^†2 and J-PLUS^†3 , each of them with a wide range of scientific applications, like e.g. large structure cosmology and Dark Energy, galaxy evolution, supernovae, Milky Way structure, exoplanets, among many others. To do that, JST and JAST are equipped with panoramic cameras under development within the J-PAS collaboration, JPCam and T80Cam respectively, which make use of large format (~ 10k x 10k) CCDs covering the entire focal plane. This paper describes in detail, from operations point of view, a comparison between the detailed cost of the global automation of the Observatory and the standard automation cost for astronomical facilities, in reference to the total investment and highlighting all benefits obtained from this approach and difficulties encountered. The paper also describes the engineering development of the overall facilities and infrastructures for the fully automated observatory and a global overview of current status, pinpointing lessons learned in order to boost observatory operations performance, achieving scientific targets, maintaining quality requirements, but also minimizing operation cost and human resources.

The remote observing system at W. M. Keck Observatory has been in place for more than 20 years, but prior to 2020, it had focused on providing observing access only to observers physically located at a prescribed set of formal sites, typically dedicated rooms located at member universities in the Keck partnership. The Novel Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 forced a rapid and drastic change in the philosophy and design of the Keck remote observing system. These changes were made in two phases. The first phase could be characterized as triage or emergency response, while the second phase focused on longer term issues such as security, staff support, and maintainability of the system.

The operation of robotic telescopes at remote locations without supervision by local staff is a specific challenge for Las Cumbres Observatory’s (LCOGT) global network, where more than 25 telescopes are operated at seven globally distributed sites. LCOGT personnel typically visits each site every 18 months for general maintenance and upgrade tasks, whereas minor failures are handled by local site support staff. LCOGT is making efforts to quantitatively inform decisions about scheduling preventative maintenance tasks and to provide tools to assist with failure diagnostic and response. For example, all night-time observations from all telescopes are analyzed to quantify the telescopes’ throughput; these data, updated daily and looking back more than four years, are used to inform the cadence of telescope mirror washing and recoating. Further examples of utilizing every day’s science data are presented, including monitoring the readnoise of more than 25 CCD cameras which has enabled the early detection of a failing CCD controller. Telemetry from all installations is collected in a no-SQL database (Opensearch) ∗ and presented to various stakeholders via the visualization tools Kibana and Grafana† . These utilities are used to diagnose problems in preprogrammed views, e.g., to detect acute issues or long-term degradation in the fleet of Cryotiger cooling systems. Telemetry data and performance metrics have always been collected at LCOGT. Making those data consistent, accessible, and easy to use for all stakeholders at LCOGT made the deluge of information usable in the daily observatory operation routine.

A telescope has been an important way to observe the stars since it was invented. With the development of the times, people have higher and higher requirements for telescopes. In order to further improve the imaging quality and observation accuracy, the aperture of the telescope is becoming larger and larger, the associated devices are becoming more and more complex, and the working environment is becoming more and more diverse. A good telescope control system can effectively reduce labor costs and improve the utilization efficiency of observation time, so people put forward higher requirements for telescope control system. The emergence of computers has promoted the rapid development of a control system for a telescope system. Faced with the development trend of large-scale, networked and diversified observation requirements of telescopes, the control system realizes robustness and scalability on the basis of automatic observation. In this paper a control system for a telescope system based on RACS2 framework is introduced. This control system includes front-end services, back-end services, observation control components and device components. The device components are designed, which is responsible for interacting with the devices such as a telescope mount, a camera and a weather station. The remote control is realized based on Web service. The observational operation of the telescope system is tested with good results.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) shut down for a period of over 6 months in 2020. The subsequent restart of the largest, most complex astronomical observatory on earth required a balance between COVID risk and operational needs. In this submission we highlight the early efforts to secure and monitor the installations at our remote, 5,000m site, which saw its normal staff complement reduce from ~180 to ~10 overnight, requiring rapid changes to procedures, new improvised installations, and implementation of remote support previously unavailable. We outline the planning, review, recovery, and lessons learned from the restart efforts.

SALT (Southern African Large Telescope) is a 10-m class optical telescope located in Sutherland, South Africa, 340km from its head office in Cape Town. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, SALT had to adapt to a virtual environment to ensure telescope operations and projects continued, while various levels of Government restrictions were in place. The early strict lockdown stages had staff working from home, while those who did onsite telescope maintenance were unable to work. However, after many planning sessions of looking at the various challenges around a mostly virtual environment, SALT was able to operate the telescope earlier than most ground-based telescopes, even during strict COVID-19 restrictions. This was accomplished by ensuring a safe operation of the telescope in remote mode for both employees and equipment. It was important that the telescope maintenance was kept up to date where possible to prevent system failures, which was accomplished by only allowing maintenance teams at the telescope when required. To ensure operations and projects remained active, we implemented the necessary virtual tools, training, and protocols to enable effective virtual meetings for operations and projects. Over time, as Government regulations changed and as we familiarized ourselves with a virtual environment, we found that we are capable of working in a hybrid environment, although there is still room for improvement. People management and teamwork play an important role for smooth operations. Enabling this environment takes some understanding of the various challenges and how to overcome them.

To provide results of high quality, the operation of astronomical observatories faces multiple dilemmas: Observations need to be precise, hence requiring for both stable measurement conditions and long measurement durations while external disturbance needs to be kept at minimum level. Astronomical observatories are typically set up at remote locations. The electric grid which is required to operate the observatory contains power electronics to a high degree, e.g. for acquisition, storage and transport of measurement data. This distorts sinusoidal current and voltage signals within the whole installation. The sensitivity of measurement electronics relies on voltage and current signals not to be distorted above a certain extent so that the instruments may differentiate weak measurement signals from signal noise. This contribution assesses the state of health of the electrical power grid and points to effects on the operation of astronomical observatories supplied by the grid.

Las Cumbres Observatory (LCOGT) operates a network of more than 25 telescopes that are globally distributed over seven sites. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic restricting travel to most of those sites since March 2020, LCOGT achieved several significant operational milestones: (i) We deployed a new multi-channel imager (MuSCAT3) at Haleakala Observatory. (ii) We installed two new 1-meter telescopes at Teide Observatory. (iii) We performed essential maintenance with local staff at the sites. The latter included opening two of the NRES spectrograph’s thermal and pressure enclosures - a task traditionally executed by trained LCOGT personnel only. We discuss the evolution of LCOGT’s paradigm for maintenance. Sustaining observatory operations increasingly relied on local observatory staff, of various skill levels and capabilities, to execute the highest priority work with remote support. We made this possible with extensive planning, being sensitive to local conditions, and bringing in expertise to support and guide in real-time via extended Zoom sessions.

Reflectivity loss due to dust deposition over primary mirrors is a key issue for ground-based astronomical observatories. Suspended atmospheric dust falls over the optical surface affecting its performance and optical quality. Several in-situ and off-site techniques have been developed for eliminating dust particulates from optical surfaces, but all of them present important drawbacks like being time-consuming, expensive, contaminant or even involving dangerous operations in off-site approaches. Alternatively, a method based on laser-matter interaction and SENER’s experience in ground telescopes, has been tested and developed. Laser cleaning is a discipline that covers a large range of applications, from semiconductor physical decontamination to the removal of oxides from metallic surfaces. The wide catalogue of laser systems currently available, allows us to investigate and design the best laser source for astronomical mirror maintenance. This has allowed us to develop a system that performs a proper cleaning for astronomical mirrors, which is currently bridging the gap between the laboratory demonstrator and the telescope application. In this communication we present the development of a laser cleaning system for the removal of dust particulates and contaminants attached to telescope mirror surfaces. Several configurations have been tested in the laboratory, under different conditions, and cleaning was performed over aluminized Zerodur® flat samples, that were naturally contaminated in Atacama’s desert and Canary Islands, aiming at the definition, manufacturing, and testing of a demonstrator prototype. Results show a large improvement of reflectivity after cleaning and contribute to the design of a custom efficient laser cleaning system adapted to different observatories.

The telescope on Mt. Graham in southeastern Arizona boasts two 8.4-meter diameter primary mirrors mounted side-by-side to produce a collecting area equivalent to an 11.8-meter circular aperture and offer the diffraction-limited resolution of a 22.65-meter telescope. First light happened in 2006 (single mirror) and 2007 (both mirrors). We will present a holistic view of the past fifteen years, looking at successes and challenges unfolding with the arrival of instruments, AO systems and an interferometer which made the LBT the first of the ELTs. The move to full time efficient operations was more challenging than anticipated, stemming from the nature of LBT itself, the initial paradigm of its operation, and the nature of its partnership. The evolution of the usual metrics will provide valuable lessons learned and demonstrate LBT’s potential for the next decade. After all, LBT is still the largest operational optical telescope on a single mount and will be for a few more years.

CubeSats provide opportunities for science and technology demonstration missions with low-cost solutions and short project timescales, in particular, for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the multi-messenger era. A robust operations strategy for scientific CubeSat projects is key to optimising the results obtained from the experimental instruments. The Educational Irish Research Satellite (EIRSAT-1) is a 2U CubeSat with three novel payloads, including a bespoke gamma-ray detector, GMOD, developed in-house for the detection of GRBs. The detection and reporting of GRB triggers to the scientific community complicates and drives the mission operational strategy. The operational procedures developed for commissioning and operating GMOD are detailed. The successful operation of EIRSAT-1 will facilitate the detection of ∼15 GRBs/year in low earth orbit. To increase the likelihood of mission success, the project is following a prototype model philosophy, building and testing, both an Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) and Flight Model (FM). The EIRSAT-1 operations manual is the document that will instruct operators in commanding the spacecraft correctly and efficiently throughout the mission lifetime. The operations manual must be refined in parallel to payload development. This two-model philosophy has provided time for the early development of the EIRSAT-1 operations manual with the EQM. The EIRSAT-1 operations manual has undergone incremental updates based on feedback from Operational Development Tests (ODTs) and a version with 35 procedures was frozen prior to the month-long EQM mission test (MT). Specifically, the objective of this work is to validate and refine the operations manual using the EQM MT process. Although the ODTs were effective preparation, the MT process highlighted issues such as procedures operators found convoluted, and scenarios not yet considered during the initial development stages. Two new procedures were identified, eight procedures required major updates, fifteen required minor updates and the remaining twelve required no improvements after the MT. The validation process facilitated operator training in mission representative conditions, such as GRB triggering data downlink with GMOD, and the major lessons learned during the development and validation process are presented.

The Gemini Visiting Instrument Program (VIP) was developed to allow investigators to bring their innovative instruments and get access to either or both Gemini Telescopes. The VIP runs based on the scientific community’s instrumentation needs and helps the Gemini Observatory adapt to agile instrument program planning. We accept a broad range of instruments: from small to large instruments, from existing instruments to new ones built from scratch, from instruments for one time visit to those for multi-semester visit. To be accepted as a visiting instrument at Gemini Observatory, instruments need to show their uniqueness and provide records or predictions of the large science return from their previous facilities. Principal investigators of the possible visiting instruments must demonstrate their instruments’ competitiveness via regular telescope time allocation process. In this contribution we present the current status and plans of visiting instruments at Gemini Observatory.

The MUSCAT is a binational collaboration, led by the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) and Cardiff University, dedicated to transfer a variety of skills and experience in the development of technologies for the next generation of sub-mm instrumentation. This primary objective includes the capability to design and fabricate LEKID arrays, design and construct optical, mechanical and cryogenic refrigeration systems operating at temperatures below 150 mK, together with the integration and programming of the readout electronics for multiple detector sub-arrays. The successful development and testing of MUSCAT has provided the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) with a large-format millimeter-wavelength camera and a versatile cryogenic platform that can be easily modified to allow the installation of alternative continuum or on-chip spectrometer arrays using different optics, filtering, detector geometries, materials and technologies that can operate at different frequencies.

The Carnegie Observatories in 2019 celebrated 50 years since Las Campanas in northern Chile was chartered as the site for its large telescopes. Since that time Carnegie has deployed four telescopes, the Swope 1 meter, the du Pont 2.5 meter and, on behalf of the Magellan consortium, the two Magellan 6.5 meter. All telescopes are routinely used producing world class science. In this paper we will review the current science operations that are mainly performed in a classical observing mode, and then present the future strategies needed across the observatory to operate in survey, remote and robotic mode.

The possibility to observe transiting exoplanets from Dome C in Antarctica provides immense benefits: stable weather conditions, limited atmospheric turbulence, and a night that lasts almost three months due to the austral winter. However, this site also presents significant limitations, such as limited access for maintenance and internet speeds of only a few KB/s. This latter factor means that the approximately 6 TB of data collected annually must be processed on site automatically, with only final data products being sent once a day to Europe. In this context, we present the current state of operations of ASTEP+, a 40 cm optical telescope located at Concordia Station in Antarctica. Following a successful summer campaign, ASTEP+ has begun the 2022 observing season with a brand-new two-color photometer with increased sensitivity. A new Python data analysis pipeline installed on a dedicated server in Concordia will significantly improve the precision of the extracted photometry, enabling us to get higher signal-to-noise transit detections. The new pipeline additionally incorporates automatic transit modelling to reduce the amount of manual post-processing required. It also handles the automatic daily transfer of the photometric light curves and control data to Europe. Additionally, we present the Python and web-based systems used for selection and scheduling of transit observations; these systems have wide applicability for the scheduling of other astronomical observations with strong time constraints. We also review the type of science that ASTEP+ will be conducting and analyze how unique ASTEP+ is to exoplanet transit research.

The Arecibo Observatory collapsed after a progressive structural failure originating from a single open socket joint. A failure investigation was conducted to identify the cause of the first failed cable termination socket. Due to the nature of the suspended observatory receiver, the dominant source of loading in the suspension cables was due to deadload, with secondary contributions coming from environmental effects and observatory operation. The high ratio of deadload vs. live load applied to the cable over many years resulted in a creep failure mode of the cast zinc within the socket which further induced stress into the highly stressed wires at the entrance of the socket. The design of the socket joint did not explicitly consider socket constituent stress margins and time-dependent damage mechanisms such as creep. Lessons learned from this investigation led to recommendations for revising civil engineering cable standards, and recommendations for manufacturers and designers. The design of cables employing socket terminations should consider the cumulative damage effects from creep and cyclic loading, identify their corresponding worst-case inspectable defects, or establish a sufficiently high factor of safety so that the design is sufficiently robust to defects and time-dependent failure modes. The design should specify end-of-life capability and set service life inspection intervals with pass/fail inspection criteria. Finally, trial studies on design iterations were conducted to increase the reliability of cables with socket joints.

GRANDMA is a world-wide collaboration with the primary scientific goal of studying gravitational-wave sources, discovering their electromagnetic counterparts and characterizing their emission. GRANDMA involves astronomers, astrophysicists, gravitational-wave physicists, and theorists. GRANDMA is now a truly global network of telescopes, with (so far) 30 telescopes in both hemispheres. It incorporates a citizen science programme (Kilonova-Catcher) which constitutes an opportunity to spread the interest in time-domain astronomy. The telescope network is an heterogeneous set of already-existing observing facilities that operate coordinated as a single observatory. Within the network there are wide-field imagers that can observe large areas of the sky to search for optical counterparts, narrow-field instruments that do targeted searches within a predefined list of host-galaxy candidates, and larger telescopes that are devoted to characterization and follow-up of the identified counterparts. Here we present an overview of GRANDMA after the third observing run of the LIGO/VIRGO gravitational-wave observatories in 2019 − 2020 and its ongoing preparation for the forthcoming fourth observational campaign (O4). Additionally, we review the potential of GRANDMA for the discovery and follow-up of other types of astronomical transients.

The ESO Science Archive offers powerful interfaces through which any user can browse and download its content. The most recent developments [18,19,20,22] consist of the web-based archive science portal and a programmatic interface providing Virtual Observatory (VO) access to the Science Archive. The underlying databases offer a rich set of scientifically characterizing and VO-based metadata to facilitate data discovery [1, 15, and 23 in turn based on 2,5,6,8]. The query results provide access to the identified files together with related ancillary files and information (e.g., previews, weight-maps, data documentation, calibration reference files, etc.). Specific to the programmatic interface, users can explore the structure and content of the archive databases and scientific catalogue tables [4,21], and then write their own queries [3], for an empowered data discovery experience. When downloading the data, users can select the cutout service [16] to retrieve selected spatial and/or spectral subsets instead of the entire datasets. Authentication and authorization allow privileged users to extend their query and download capabilities beyond what is possible to anonymous users. The adoption of Virtual Observatory (VO) standards and technologies has been at the core of the development of the described interfaces. Here below we present the interfaces, and then an analysis of the costs and benefits of utilizing VO technologies in the ESO archive, as well as the lessons learned in the process.

Solar observations are intrinsically harsh to optics and detectors. Space measurements in particular expose the spacecraft and payload to charged particles and UV radiation which causes changes in the transmission profile of windows and optics. These affect the absolute accuracy of the measurements over time. Astronomical observations typically rely on standard stars and calibration sources to track and correct changes in the instrument. This method was used with the SORCESOLSTICE instrument during its 17 year Solar Spectral Irradiance (SSI) measurement record covering more than 9 orders of magnitudes in brightness between stellar and Solar observations. Other instruments are designed with multiple identical channels which are used at various cadence to track degradation differentially. We present the advantages and issues discovered with each method and the benefits of following a constant and regular observation plan to improve the accuracy of the degradation corrections.

We present ExoTOM – a target-observation-manager automating exoplanet transit follow-up. ExoTOM is built upon the TOM-toolkit developed by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO). ExoTOM keeps track of known transiting exoplanet targets (and candidates), automatically predicts their transit times and observability at several telescope sites, and plans and requests observations via the LCO observing portal API. Target selection can be constrained by magnitude, transit depth and manually set priorities. The recorded photometric data is then automatically retrieved and analyzed. A simple transit fit is performed using the batman transit modeling package. The data and analysis products can be accessed and edited via the ExoTOM web interface. An analysis procedure was developed to extract the cleanest possible transit light curves from the photometric data. The main challenge was to find the best radius for the aperture photometry and the best sample of reference stars to use for the differential photometry. The analysis procedure first removes outlier reference stars and frames and then uses a new algorithm to solve the discrete optimization problem of selecting the best reference stars and aperture. From January through September 2021, ExoTOM’s automatic observation scheduling produced 18 whole transit observations and 14 more of just the ingress or egress. The targets were TESS objects of interest ranging from TESS magnitude 8.7 to 13.5 mag and transit depth 1.5 to 118 mmag. These observations were done on the 50cm Cassegrain telescope of the Institute of Astrophysics of the University of Göttingen.

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer is designed to obtain > 4000 simultaneous spectra from the optical to NIR over a 1.5 square degree field of view at multiple resolutions and with unprecedented sensitivity (m=24). A robust facility science calibration system (SCal) will be required to achieve the desired precision over many observations spaced across months or years with minimal impact to the observing efficiency. We describe the major hardware components required to perform sensitivity and wavelength calibrations, removal of sky background and other stray light or ghost signals, PSF calibration, and detection of any spurious contamination sources. Keywords: Massively multiplexed spectroscopic surveys, 10m-class telescopes, spectroscopic facility, survey facility, wide field, multi-object spectrograph, calibration.

The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) decided some years ago to become a data-centric operational facility, basing its operational decision-making processes on evidence and ensuring several efforts to adopt data science practices to its daily operations. Key non-profit collaborations allowed ALMA to work with Dataiku, empowering us to design projects to explore high data volumes and prepare solutions to enable informed operational decisions. To increase the capabilities of the data science platform, JAO invested on an in-house infrastructure, providing a Hadoop ecosystem which allowed processing big datasets in reasonable time. The provisioning of such ecosystems is laborious and expensive in terms of system administration effort, highlighting the need to explore alternatives. JAO sought to collaborate with cloud providers to investigate alternatives, deciding to experiment with Amazon Web Services (AWS). A key element to this decision was flexibility provided, and a practical hands-on explorative approach, which was close to JAO's vision. The relationship, formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding, enabled the development of a proof of concept (PoC) aiming to replicate the existing system on the cloud. Although the PoC might not impress as an ambitious goal, designing an architecture using the broad set of technologies offered by AWS to seamlessly work together with Dataiku was a non-trivial challenge on top of the limited six weeks available to complete it and the continuous learning of technologies and concepts. This paper summarizes our results, lessons learned, and key insights gained during our focused and successful rapid prototyping effort.

This paper discusses the usage of LoRa wireless transmission protocol in support of CCAT-prime telescope operations in northern Chile. A LoRa based sensor network allows for low data rate sensors to be deployed with up to 1 year battery life with a broadcast range of multiple kilometers. In this paper we present the basics of a LoRa network and demonstrate its application to a vehicle tracking system as part of an observatory sensor network. We show results from a recent test campaign and demonstrate transmission ranges up to 40km. We discuss plans for future expansion and how such a system aids the remote operation of an observatory.

Once assembly has been completed, the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera must be safely transported from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) in California to the observatory facility in Chile. In order to preemptively verify the procedures and hardware involved in this critical shipment, a test shipment was performed with a fully representative Camera mass simulator. Despite several logistical complications, the Camera Shipping Container performed near-flawlessly on all legs of the journey from SLAC to the summit. Results from this preliminary shipment have guided further improvements to both hardware and the shipping process that will be implemented prior to the final Camera shipment.

The future ESA space mission PLATO aims to detect thousands of exoplanets, including Earth-like planets, and constrain their radius and mean density. To achieve this goal, the space based photometric observations are not enough but need to be complemented by ground-based observations to measure the Radial Velocity (RV) of the exoplanet host stars. MARVEL is such a facility consisting of four 80 cm telescope linked through optical fibers to a single high-resolution ´echelle spectrograph, designed for high-precision RV measurements with a uncertainty of ∼ 1 ms⁻¹ . MARVEL is build by a consortium led by the KU Leuven with contributions from the UK, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, and Spain, and will be commissioned in 2023. To reach such high RV precision, not only ultra-stable hardware is currently being developed, but also a state-of-the-art data processing pipeline for which we present the first results in this poster.

Meteorites are remains of space targets, which could provide direct evidence to analyse the history of the solar system. Meteorites normally come from comets, asteroids or meteoroids. When these space targets travel through the atmosphere, they would radiate energy and become fireballs. With appropriate instruments, we could build a system to obtain meteorites. The system includes devices to observe these fireballs and unmanned aerial vehicles to discovery these meteorites on the ground. In a meteorites detection system, an adequate observation device and detection algorithm are important. In this paper, we would show the device developed by our group with commercial camera and neural networks to detect fireballs efficiently. The device could achieve more than 97% accuracy in detection of fireballs in real time. Besides, the device is cheap and small, which could be placed in different places to form an array to locate meteorites.