Time to Revisit the Heterogeneous Telescope Network
Abstract
The "Heterogeneous Telescope Network" (HTN) was founded in 2005 as a loose collaboration of people somehow associated with robotic telescopes and/or projects interested in the transient universe. Other than being a very interesting forum for the exchange of ideas, the only lasting contribution of the HTN was a proposed protocol for the operation of a loose e-market for the exchange of telescope time (Allan et al. 2006; White & Allan 2007). Since the last formal meeting in 2007, the HTN has gone into a "Dornröschenschlaf" (a better word than "hibernation") : the players and interest are there, but the public visibility and activity is not. Although the participants knew and know that global networking is the way of the future for many types of science, various things have kept the HTN from taking the idea and actually implementing it: work on simply getting one's own system to work (e.g. myself), career paths of major players (e.g. Allan), dealing with the complexity of ones' own network (TALONS, RoboNet, LCO), and - most importantly - no common science driver big enough to push the participants to try it in earnest. Things have changed, however: robotic telescopes have become easier to create and operate, private networks have matured, large-scale consortia have become more common, event reporting using VOEvent has become the global standard and has a well-defined infrastructure, and large-scale sources of new objects and events are operating or will soon be operating (OGLE, CSS, Pan-STARRs, GAIA). I will review the scientific and sociological prospects for re-invigorating the HTN idea and invite discussion.
- Publication:
-
The Third Hot-wiring the Transient Universe Workshop
- Pub Date:
- 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014htu..conf...95H