Each of these telescopes observes automatically, under computer control, usually with nobody on site. TSU manages four of the present eight telescopes in this facility. Others are managed by principal astronomers at Villanova, Franklin and Marshall, the College of Charleston, and Arizona State. Ignoring the romance of Luddism, we find automation has made our photometric observing both cheaper and a lot more effective. Thus the reasons for automating astronomical observing are exactly the same as for manufacturing.
Individual observations are less expensive.
Although allocation of expenses to particular projects is subject to criticism, the cost per observation does seem considerably less with robotic telescopes. He finds the manual observing was about twenty times as expensive per differential photometric observation of a variable star. These dramatic savings were realized in time not spent at the telescope as well as in the large amounts of time spent reducing data that had to be manually corrected for the inadequate data logging system used at Kitt Peak. More data can be gathered per star. Automatic telescopes can observe during all clear weather available.