Remote Observing on the Ground

The advent of space-based astronomy clearly marked the time when the astronomer and the telescope were separated. The same separation is taking place in ground-based astronomy, albeit less dramatically. Numerous demonstrations have occurred during the 1970s and 1980s in which astronomers conducted observing runs on telescopes located at distant sites. In one case, the astronomer was in 

Edinburgh, Scotland, and the telescope was in Hawaii. The first light pictures taken with the European Southern Observatory s 3.5-m NTT in Chile were transmitted to as-fionomers in Munich, Germany. In both cases the connection was through a communications satellite. This fiend is likely to accelerate as the cost for such connections reduces and the data transmission rates increase. 

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