Advantages of Automated Observing with Small Telescopes

Abstract

Advances in communications and electronics have made it possible to operate completely automatic telescopes reliably. This mode of operation lets one use moderately small telescopes to conduct research projects that would simply not be practicable otherwise. The principal advantages of automated observing, a) the ability to monitor objects over long times, b) flexibility of scheduling, and c) high productivity, are interrelated. We have operated state-of-the-art automatic photometric telescopes over the past fifteen years and are now adding automatic imaging and spectroscopic telescopes to give an integrated automatic observatory. We discuss how automating small telescopes can make them competitive research instruments through examples from this TSU Completely Automated Observatory.