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

Raquel Cedazo,Alberto Brunete,Hugo R Albarracin,Esteban Gonzalez

doi:10.3390/s21041138

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.

Highlights

The astronomical observatories are complex infrastructures in privileged places, away from light pollution, in order to make observations in the best conditions
This paper describes, in detail, an open-design smart cover for a robotic telescope in order to achieve continuous day-and-night operation in the same observatory with two telescopes, one solar and the other for nighttime
The goal of the work described in this paper is to develop a smart cover for the night telescope, so that it can coexist with the day-time telescope

Summary

Introduction

The astronomical observatories are complex infrastructures in privileged places, away from light pollution, in order to make observations in the best conditions. There is a clear division between (1) professional observatories, which are much more expensive, more difficult to robotize, and purely intended for research, and (2) amateur ones, with more modest equipment, more robotized, and intended more for education and dissemination. In any case, both generally share a common structure, which includes telescope, focuser, weather station, CCD and all-sky cameras, uninterrupted power supply (UPS), computers, and lights, all being protected by a motorized dome

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