PiMan: System Manager of the “Pi of the Sky” Experiment

This paper describes PiMan, a CORBA-based system manager of the “Pi of the Sky” experiment, whose prototype consisting of two cameras on parallactic mount is running at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. We discuss in detail all software components of the “Pi of the Sky” system, interactions between them, and the architecture of the PiMan system. PiMan extension and other system software that will control and monitor final system being under construction, consisting of two sites with 16 CCD cameras installed on three mounts per site, is also described in this paper

“Pi of the Sky” Detector

“Pi of the Sky” experiment has been designed for continuous observations of a large part of the sky, in search for astrophysical phenomena characterized by short timescales, especially for prompt optical counterparts of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Other scientific goals include searching for novae and supernovae stars and monitoring of blasars and AGNs activity. “Pi of the Sky” is a fully autonomous, robotic detector, which can operate for long periods of time without a human supervision. A crucial element of the detector is an advanced software for real-time data analysis and identification of short optical transients. The most important result so far has been an independent detection and observation of the prompt optical emission of the “naked-eye” GRB080319B