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Tim Naylor chases stars.
No, he's not a paparazzo, he's an astronomer. And since many of the most interesting astronomical events – such as supernova explosions and swirling gases being swallowed by black holes – happen with little or no warning, Naylor spends his days and nights frantically trying to keep up with the universe.
"I've spent all my career chasing stars. And I do mean chasing," said Naylor. "Someone phones you up to say that a particular star has changed, and then you may have just a few hours to make your observations. So you start phoning other observatories to see if you can beg, steal or borrow time from the observers to whom that time has been allocated."
But Naylor, head of the eScience Telescopes for Astronomical Research, or eSTAR, team at the University of Exeter, doesn't have to run quite so fast anymore. The team has developed intelligent autonomous software programs, known as agents, which soon will be used to create a network of telescopes that can respond automatically to astronomical events.
The agents can observe the sky, analyze and immediately follow up any significant sightings with further observations, and communicate with and control telescopes, all without the need for any human intervention. They also can send text messages to astronomers' mobile phones, alerting them to astronomical events.
The eSTAR agent software is open-source, and the team hopes that other astronomers will be able to create their own agents to carry out their observational tasks. So far the system has taken about three years to develop, Naylor said.
This is not the first time that telescopes have been automated, but according to Alasdair Allan, who is on the eSTAR team, it is the first intelligent observing system ever developed for astronomical research.
"The agents can detect and respond to the rapidly changing universe faster than any human, and make decisions to observe an object much faster than would otherwise be possible," explained Allan. "The system thinks and reacts for itself, deciding whether something it has discovered is interesting enough to need more observations. If more observations are needed, it just goes ahead and gets them."
The agents recently were put through their paces for the first time on the 3.8-meter United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, or UKIRT, on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
An agent took live images with UKIRT, and compared them with previous infrared maps of the sky. It then detected a dwarf nova – a star that experiences sudden flares in its brightness.
The test run worked well, despite an earthquake that occurred the night of the trial of the new software. But astronomers are used to dealing with technical challenges created by Mother Nature on the 13,796-foot summit of Mauna Kea.
While vacationers bask on the beaches below, astronomers often battle heavy storms that commonly deposit several feet of snow. Minimum nighttime winter temperatures at the summit are around 25 degrees Fahrenheit; maximum daytime temperatures are about 40 degrees, but wind chill and the high altitude can make it seem much colder.
"Many of us have been 'weathered out' during observing on Mauna Kea," said Douglas Pierce-Price of the Joint Astronomy Centre, the observatory that operates both UKIRT and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, or JCMT.
"I used to go to Hawaii from the U.K., making all my friends jealous, and then they would be amazed when I'd come back not only without a suntan, but also with a picture of a snowman I'd made," he said.
Building snowmen in Hawaii might be fun, but astronomers apply for telescope time on a six-month cycle. If they are awarded time, usually doled out in two-week chunks, they travel to the telescope. Only if the weather cooperates will they get all the data they hoped to get.
If the weather is not good, they go away empty-handed. If they haven't been scooped by someone elsewhere, they can reapply. Getting weathered out typically means a one-year delay in any research, explained Andy Adamson, head of operations at UKIRT.
Astronomers from the Observation Management Project have developed software for UKIRT and JCMT that allows the telescopes to respond dynamically to the changing weather conditions. So now, automated telescope systems can observe whenever weather permits, even if the astronomers aren't physically present.
"This lets us make the most efficient possible use of the weather on Mauna Kea," Pierce-Price said. "And the eSTAR intelligent agents obviously add even more flexibility to our observing."
In the next few months, the eSTAR agents will connect UKIRT to the JCMT, which also is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre. After that, the team hopes to expand the network to include other telescopes, such as the Liverpool Telescope on the Spanish island of La Palma and the Faulkes Telescopes in Hawaii and Australia.
