FAST: A software suite for automatic weather and optical turbulence forecast on ground-based telescope sites

TL;DR

FAST is an automated software suite that forecasts atmospheric and optical turbulence parameters for ground-based telescopes, aiding in observation planning and adaptive optics optimization.

Contribution

It introduces a modular, automated system for atmospheric and astroclimatic forecasting tailored for large telescope sites, adaptable to different projects and timescales.

Findings

Successfully applied to LBT and VLT forecast systems.

Provides forecasts from days to hours in advance, day and night.

Achieved full maturity for broader application.

Abstract

In this contribution we present the FAST, which is a comprehensive software suite that aims to streamline and automatically manage the forecast of atmospheric and astroclimatic parameters (provided respectively by Meso-Nh and Astro-Meso-Nh models) on large ground-based telescope installations. The forecast of the aforementioned parameters is becoming crucial for the operation of the large telescope installations which possess atmospheric-sensitive equipment equipped with Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. FAST performs automatically all the steps of an atmosphere forecast process: initialisation and forcing data, atmospheric simulation, postprocessing and managing of the outputs.The role of such service is useful both in optimizing beforehand AO instruments to the next atmospheric conditions and in planning telescope observations (especially in "service mode") in order to maximize the scientific output. FAST was applied first to the ALTA Center project, which provides forecasts for the LBT telescope. Then it was extended to the more recent project FATE that is a similar forecast system applied to the VLT. Since its first version FAST evolved and it has has been modified to fit with the different technical specifications of the different projects gaining in modularity. It is now able to provide forecasts on different timescales (from days to hours before) and to provide forecast during night and day time. After several years of continuous development we can say that FAST reached full maturity and it is now ready for applications to other projects/sites.