<title>eSTAR: a distributed telescope network</title>

Abstract

The e-STAR (e-Science Telescopes for Astronomical Research) project uses GRID techniques to develop the software infrastructure for a global network of robotic telescopes. The basic architecture is based around Intelligent Agents which request data from Discovery Nodes that may be telescopes or databases. Communication is based on a development of the XML RTML language secured using the Globus I/O library, with status serving provided via LDAP. We describe the system architecture and protocols devised to give a distributed approach to telescope scheduling, as well as giving details of the implementation of prototype Intelligent Agent and Discovery Node systems.