A PLC-BASED SYSTEM FOR THE CONTROL OF AN EDUCATIONAL OBSERVATORY

Abstract

An educational project that aims to involve young students in astronomical observations has been developed in the last decade at the Basovizza branch station of the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste. The telescope used is a 14” reflector equipped with a robotic Paramount ME equatorial mount and placed in a nonautomatic dome. The new-developing control system is based on Beckhoff PLC. The control system will mainly allow to remotely control the three-phase synchronous motor of the dome, the switching of the whole instrumentation and the park of the telescope. Thanks to the data coming from the weather sensor, the PLC will be able to ensure the safety of the instruments. A web interface is used for the communication between the user and the instrumentation. In this paper a detailed description of the whole PLC-based control system architecture will be presented.