A Target of Opportunity Observing System for NOAO

Rob SeamanData Products Program

29 April 2008

Astronomy is many disciplines

From Solar System to Galaxy to CosmosFrom Big Bang to current epochFrom gigayear stasis to explosive detonationPhysics in extreme regimesEarth’s broadest contextCivilization’s ultimate master

Diverse Observing modesClassical observingQueue scheduledSurvey campaignsService staffingRemote staffingKibitzing modesRobotic observingAll share autonomous trends (power tools)

Experimental designObservations serve empirical purpose(s)Archival science is not differentPhilosophical issues can’t be ducked:

What is a detection? What is an object? What is a process?

Software can help or hinder

Astronomical lifecycleAsk questionDesign experimentSubmit observing proposalScheduling constraintsObserving run preparationPick an observing modeTransport data (or VO equivalent)

Astronomical lifecycle 2Reduce dataAnalyze results in contextDeduce sciencePublish to the communityPublish to the publicAsk new questions…

Time domainCan’t afford the cycle overheadMust speed up by several orders of mag.

but also…Schedule is no longer a free parameterPreparation must be complete & explicitContext is everything (sample selection)Competition is fierceThus need new observing mode

Celestial Transient Events

Aitoff projection

VOEvent protocolIVOA standardDescribe celestial transient eventsXML message formatTransport neutralIn coordination with Heterogeneous

Telescope Network (HTN)

<VOEvent><Who> - provenance<What> - observations<WhereWhen> - space/time localization<How> - instrument configuration<Why> - semantic characterization<Citations> - empirical threads

Many VOEvent projectsVO-GCN (Phil, Mike, Caltech, Cal, GSFC)VOEventNet (Caltech, NOAO, LANL, Cal)HTN (LCOGT, eSTAR, etc.)CBAT/MPC/AAVSO/ATELGCN/SNEWS/…NOAO SurveysNOAO ToO

SIE 554/654 projectSystem Engineering Process

Use Case driven SysML

SIE grad student team: Victor Tenorio (mining) Ana Catalina Kottman Anabel Rodriguez Shahzad Patel (Fall ‘07)

System Engineering Plan

Trade-off studies