Implementation of photometry, automation and remote control in the GROWTH-India telescope

Abstract

The study of electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves holds immense potential for breakthroughs in our understanding of short gamma ray bursts, sites of r-process nucle- osynthesis, and even cosmology. The rst discovery of a gravitational wave source with an electromagnetic counterpart, GW170817, has opened the oodgates to this rich new eld. In- dian e orts to discover such sources will be led by the upcoming wide- eld GROWTH-India telescope: India's rst robotic telescope. The aim of this thesis is to completely automate the telescope in order to enable such searches. This includes the development of a robust client-server architecture for telescope remote control, a versatile client for automation, and image processing and archival pipelines at the server. xi