Around 1965 a small, computer controlled telescope was put into operation at the University of Wisconsin Pine Bluff Observatory in order to provide for real-time evaluation of extinction coefficients. This instrument represented a 'spinoff' from the space program being actively pursued at Wisconsin at that time. The telescope could operate automatically from night to night without the need for human input, and it could carry out the basic logical decisions required for such an operation. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the history and functional performance of our early robotic telescope.
Date
01/01/1992
Citation
Code, A. D. (1992). The Wisconsin APT - The first robotic telescope. In A. V. Filippenko (Ed.), Robotic Telescopes in the 1990s, ASP Conference Series (Vol. 34, pp. 3–8). San Francisco, CA: ASP.