Thinking telescopes and the future astronomical Meta-Network

In 2002, the RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) project pushed the envelope of automated astronomy by becoming the first fully autonomous closedloop robotic telescope. Deployment required a fast, efficient, and reliable network technology to perform the collaborative, synchronized observations and the Telescope ALert Operation Network System (TALONS) was engineered to meet this goal. It was soon realized that the telescope systems mandate could be expanded to include monitoring the sky for anomalous and interesting behaviors in persistent sources rather than focusing on only optical transients and GRB follow-ups. But to achieve this goal we would need to make this system think and that would require the merging of the robotic telescopes assets with new technologies. The binding thread between the new technologies and RAPTOR would be an enhanced TALONS astronomical network. We have now seen that any isolated telescope system can deliver good science, but if it could cooperatively operate with a network of other telescope assets it could increase the likelihood of great science. While using the internet for communicating between distributed astronomical systems is still in its infancy, it already shows great potential (White et al. 2004) and the varied architectural techniques available offer operators great flexibility to meet their local needs and to meet a goal of greater interconnectivity. In this paper we will present the evolution of RAPTOR and TALONS into a thinking telescope system and how that effort highlights the process of designing and engineering a meta-network to meet the goal of greater interconnectivity in the astronomical community. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)