GLORIA: A global robotic telescope network for citizen scientists

Astronomy Ireland · February 2013

GLORIA ("GLObal Robotic-telescopes Intelligent Array") isan innovative and ambitious citizen-science project, whichwill give free and open access to a growing collection ofrobotic telescopes via a Web interface. The project(www.gloria-project.eu) has been funded for 3 years by theEU under the FP7 eInfrastructures programme and involves14 institutions across 8 countries, including UniversityCollege Dublin in Ireland. During the lifetime of the project,at least 17 telescopes will be deployed for use by citizenscientists.

All the necessary documentation and software will beprovided to enable this virtual community to use thetelescopes. Ultimately, these tools will enable new users tocontribute their own telescopes to the network. There isalso a significant dissemination component to the projectin order to encourage everyone to use the network, tolearn about astronomy, and to do real science.

What is a robotic telescope?

Robotic telescopes offer full automated control of anobservatory and its instruments. The key ability of a roboticsystem is that it can observe without any humanintervention. The system generates its own observingschedule according to the priority established from user-specified criteria, such as the altitude of the target.Scheduling is flexible, responding to new requests orevents as necessary, or to feedback from environmentalmonitoring sensors. The system can also be accessed andcontrolled remotely if required (so-called ‘tele-operation’)and can provide remote users with access to data.

A large proportion of the effort in developing new ground-based astronomy facilities has traditionally been directed

towards building bigger and bigger telescopes. However, atthe other end of the scale, an increasing number ofscientific programmes are being carried out by smallerinstruments operated in an automated or robotic manner.Robotic telescopes have become increasingly sophisticateddue to a variety of recent technological advances, includingthe Internet and the widespread availability of powerful,affordable computers. In addition, the increasing sophisti-cation and demands of the amateur community haveopened up new markets for cheaper mass-production ofcomponents, such as telescope mounts.

The example of Watcher

`Watcher’ is a robotic telescope which has been built bythe Space Science group in University College Dublinentirely from off-the-shelf components. It has beenoperational at Boyden Observatory in South Africa since2006. It is dedicated to the study of optical emission fromgamma-ray bursts and has been funded from a variety ofsources, including Science Foundation Ireland and the IrishResearch Council for Science, Engineering and Technology.Watcher is controlled by two Linux PCs running RTS2software, a powerful, open-source package for completemanagement of a remote observatory (rts2.org). Thissoftware automatically manages all the hardware,schedules observations of targets in a local database andcan respond to alerts for rapid gamma-ray burst follow-upobservations.

The beginnings of GLORIA

As the number of robotic telescopes around the worldbegan to grow in the last decade, the obvious next stepwas to find a way to harness their global coverage andflexible operation, allowing them to automaticallycommunicate with each other to enable continuousobservation of suitable targets throughout a night.

The ambition grew as the discussion extended to includecomputer scientists, engineers and citizen science experts.

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GLORIA: A global robotictelescope network forcitizen scientists By Lorraine Hanlon, Space Science Group,

School of Physics, University College Dublin

Locations of currently operational telescopes in the GLORIA network.

Researcher Martin Topinka and Watcher PrincipalInvestigator, Lorraine Hanlon, holding the newdoor sign for the Watcher building in South Africa.Credit Antonio Martin-Carrillo.

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February 2013 · Astronomy Ireland

It became clear that the possibilities offered by such anetwork of telescopes were much bigger than had firstbeen imagined.

In 2009, the GLORIA consortium was formed from groupsaround the world who own and operate robotic telescopes.The lead investigator is Prof. Francisco Sanchez-Moreno ofthe Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The first proposalsubmitted for funding to the EU was unsuccessful. Aftersubstantial revision, the proposal was resubmitted in 2010and following a successful review and negotiations with theEU, the project kicked off in October 2011.

The key components of GLORIA

There are four key elements to the GLORIA project fromthe users’ point of view:

Free and open access to the telescopes of the networkto make observations, based on users’ requests.

A web interface and software that will allow anyone toadd their own telescope to the network. The webaccess will be based on the `Ciclope Astro’ software,currently running on the world’s first free-access robotictelescope at Montegancedo Observatory(http://om.fi.upm.es) outside Madrid. The web accesswill allow the user to directly control any of thetelescopes remotely. This may be a particularlyattractive option for teachers and schools.

Citizen science experiments, to be coordinated byGalaxy Zoo (http://galaxyzoo.org), using data fromGLORIA telescopes, or from other astronomical archives.

Live web broadcast of astronomical events andassociated educational activities, including the Transit ofVenus on June 5th-6th, 2012, the Aurora Borealis andupcoming solar and lunar eclipses, all with associatededucational materials primarily targetting secondaryschools.

The challenge will be to involve people from around theworld, to maximise their collective intelligence and to fostertheir participation in astronomy research, both in dataanalysis and actual observations.

GLORIA is still at an early stage in its development but this

new resource for astronomy is coming down the line. TheGLORIA community will grow through forums anddiscussion groups. We would like to hear from you aboutwhat GLORIA can do for you! Please go to www.gloria-project.eu for more information.

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The UCD Watcher robotic telescope at BoydenObservatory in South Africa.

Researcher Martin Topinka and the Watchertelescope. Credit Martin Topinka.

Two views of the Watcher telescope. Credit MartinTopinka.

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