LCOGT Network Observatory Operations

TL;DR

This paper details the operational system of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, emphasizing automation, monitoring, and autonomous recovery to ensure reliable telescope network operations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive automated operational framework for a global telescope network, integrating hardware, software, and monitoring tools for autonomous management.

Findings

High system uptime and reliability achieved

Effective automatic error detection and recovery implemented

Operational performance metrics demonstrate system robustness

Abstract

We describe the operational capabilities of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. We summarize our hardware and software for maintaining and monitoring network health. We focus on methodologies to utilize the automated system to monitor availability of sites, instruments and telescopes, to monitor performance, permit automatic recovery, and provide automatic error reporting. The same jTCS control system is used on telescopes of apertures 0.4m, 0.8m, 1m and 2m, and for multiple instruments on each. We describe our network operational model, including workloads, and illustrate our current tools, and operational performance indicators, including telemetry and metrics reporting from on-site reductions. The system was conceived and designed to establish effective, reliable autonomous operations, with automatic monitoring and recovery - minimizing human intervention while maintaining quality. We illustrate how far we have been able to achieve that.