Observation Control System

The Tianyu telescope is equipped with an integrated observation control and monitoring system, coordinating the telescope, camera, focusing units, dome, and data pipelines. It supports remote operation and highly automated night-time observing for long-term time-domain surveys.

---

System Overview

The control system can be conceptually divided into:

• Device Layer: telescope structure, mount, focal plane hardware, cameras & filter wheels, dome and environmental sensors;
• Control Layer: low-level drivers and control services exposing a unified interface;
• Scheduling Layer: observation queue generation based on survey strategy and target priorities;
• Data Layer: data ingest, quick quality control (QC), calibration and light-curve building pipelines;
• UI Layer: a web interface that presents global status, observation plans, logs and alerts.

Automation & Safety

• Automatic start/stop of observations when safety and weather constraints are satisfied or violated;
• Automatic target switching, filter changes, exposure configuration and focus adjustments;
• Continuous monitoring of guiding quality, focusing stability and data throughput with alert thresholds;
• Safe shutdown mechanisms and notifications to on-duty staff in case of emergencies.

---

Internal Control Panel (Password Required)

The embedded panel below is the internal real-time control interface used by the Tianyu team. To avoid exposing the full control dashboard publicly, a simple password gate is used here.