Internet Access for Instrumental Control and Data Viewing at Bear Lake Observatory

University of Utah

Two departments at Utah State University have collaborated to operate an observatory near Bear Lake, Utah. The purpose of the observatory is to study various phenomena in the upper atmosphere, and houses such instruments as high-power CCD cameras, a radar system, and others. Until recently, only one instrument has had the capability of being controlled and monitored remotely. Since the other instruments do not have this capability, they must be set up and left running, only to have a person drive up to the observatory to check their operation after a given amount of time. This monitoring system is not only costly in terms of research time, but has been the cause of data loss in the past. The system reviewed in this paper was designed to provide a low cost, short-term solution to the problem of remote access. A computer system located on the USU campus communicates to a gateway computer at the observatory, which, in turn, is connected to the various observatory instruments. The communication takes place over an existing telephone line using a standard serial line protocol (PPP). This communication is then routed through World Wide Web servers on the two computers to provide a simple user interface.