The Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML) is an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

dialect for controlling remote and/or

robotic Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

s. It is used to describe various telescope parameters (such as

coordinates In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine and standardize the Position (geometry), position of the Point (geometry), points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as ...

and

exposure time In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The amount of light that rea ...

) to facilitate observation of selected targets. RTML instructions were designed to be displayed in a more human-readable way; they are then processed and executed by telescopes through local parsers. It was created by

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

's Hands-On Universe project in 1999. Because of its XML structure and consequent flexibility readability, it is now widely used, and has become an international standard for astronomical imaging.

References

External links

* http://hou.lbl.gov/rtml/ * http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~hessman/RTML/ * http://www.handsonuniverse.org/ XML-based standards Robotic telescopes {{astronomy-stub