The Team includes students with backgrounds is astronomy, computer science, and engineering, and all are working together to use their specialized skills to carry out this ambitious project. Remote observers simply connect to the computer at the Observatory via the Internet to begin the observing process. From here observers can first check to see if conditions are favorable for observing. A weather station has been installed at the Observatory which monitors cloud cover, precipitation, and wind speed such that a remote observer can use this information to decide whether or not to open the Observatory. If conditions are favorable, the remote observer can then open the roof and expose the telescope to the dark North Dakotan sky.
Additional software is used to control the CCD camera for digital imaging.
The system is likewise equipped with state of the art adaptive optics which corrects for atmospheric seeing conditions. Campus students as well as space.edu distance learning students will have the opportunity to use the telescope and so the use of the facility will be expanded to observers all around the world. Additionally, we will now be able to take full advantage of the long dark winter nights of North Dakota since people can observe from the warmth of their home and aren't limited by the unsafe freezing condition of observing outside at the telescope. I was listening to the radio in my home room, which was a home economics room. We were listening as he went up and came down.