ROTAT -- Robot Observatory Theoretische Astrophysik Tuebingen

The project ROTAT is the construction and installation of a telescope working full-automatically which will be accessable via Internet. That means, the observer can completely control the telescope from the computer at home, thus saving travel expenses. He also has grip onto a large data archive in which observation data are stored. The basic instrumentation consists of a Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting telescope with 3 meters of focal length, one ST-8 CCD-camera, two control computers and of one weather station. If no observation campaigns are running, the telescope will check automatically the sky and store the obtained data for the selection later on. The project will exploit the new multimedia technology which is fully available through the Internet. So a discussion forum will result for astronomers and the archive can be searched for fitting data which are then available to the observer for evaluation. The pictures obtained with the CCD camera and the photometric receptions are characterized in the picture file by a high resolution. Due to the digital conversion of the data, fast quality control is possible during observation. In addition, ROTAT is mobile that means it is not stationary. In the far future, a worldwide compound of robotic controlled telescopes could result checking the sky automatically and transmitting the data to a central archive.