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Internet/Remote Observing Experiment (1Dec94)
(from CTIO, NOAO Newsletter No. 40, 1 December 1994)

We conducted a successful Internet "remote observing" experiment 18/19
August. Greg Bothun (U. Oregon) logged in via the net to the 0.9-m CCD
computer and snapped four pictures of two galaxies (B and I). He was
running the controller, moving the filter wheels, and receiving the same
detector information that our normal (in dome) observer gets. We opened a
"talk" window on another computer, and Greg sent me coordinates as we
had a "realtime" discussion. At his request, I slewed the telescope and
acquired a guide star. He had complete control of the instrument.

The night was marginal, seeing about 2.5", scattered cirrus, and a nearly full
moon. But the M83 exposure was wonderful. I could see the picture on
readout, hear the shutter open and close, and see the exposure time
countdowns on a status window. This was Arcon 3.3 (Tek2k) running two
amplifiers. Greg "quadproced," compressed, and ftp'ed the images back to
the University of Oregon. The images are archived on one of his mosaic
pages at the University of Oregon: (http://zebu.uoregon.edu/messier.html).

It took a few minutes to get the images back there and redisplayed in IRAF.
We considered running remote X windows, etc., and we have done that in
tests, but we were nervous about the time delays and fragility of the link for
these higher-tec treats. In fact, 15 minutes after the experiment ended (6 pm
Oregon time) the University of Oregon, Physics Department temporarily lost
T1 connectivity to the network.

The reason we attempted all this was that a public television crew was
filming in Greg's computer lab at the University of Oregon. They had
contacted Greg for a special 90 minute PBS special on the Internet. The
program is scheduled to be aired in the US in December, and includes a
variety of interviews and commentators. We gave them real scientific images
taken by a remote station, in almost real time.

Because of obvious issues concerning bandwidth, guiding, telescope control
and environmental monitoring, remote observing is not yet practical over our
network link. Limited eavesdropping and extensive data transfers often do
occur with collaborators around the world, and many of our observers are
finding the link vital in making their observing runs successful. Tests like
this provide us with resource evaluations and help us to understand the
strengths and limitations of the evolving network capabilities.

I want to thank those who helped set this up during the week. Particularly
R. Smith, N. Saavedra, D. Smith, C. Smith and G. Webb. Special thanks to
the Yale observers, S. Jogee and C. Bailyn for use of a bit of their telescope
time, and for their gracious cooperation.

Bob Schommer

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