RTML - Remote Telescope Markup Language

RTML is an XML dialect meant to enable the transparent use of remote and/or robotic telescopes. Originally developed by the Hands-On Universe Project (HOU) of the Univ. of California at Berkeley, RTML is now available in commerical astronomy software like Bob Denny's ACP2 internet telescope package. There is a maillist for the "Remote Telescope Standards working group - an informal gathering of those interested in RTML - which should be reinvigorated by the desire to create with RTML 3+ a general interface for the operation of all kinds of service-based and even virtual telescopes (see below).

There are now several flavors of RTML being used, some experimentally:

• RTML 1.1
  This is the original proposal for RTML made by Shawn Gordon which was experimentally used by HOU.

• RTML 2.1
  This is the present "official" version of RTML mainly due to Bob Denny and is fully capable of providing full access to standard imaging telescopes. The attribute-heavy syntax in 1.1 was modified in 2.1 to make the documents simpler to read. A full description is available here and a summary of the syntax is available here.

• RTML eStar
  This is a slight deviation from 2.1 based upon my old suggestion for 2.0 currently being used by the eStar Project. This version provides quite a bit more functionality but preserves much of the structure of 2.1. Here is a summary of the syntax.

• RTML 3+
  This is a major re-vamp of RTML being developed for the MONET Project which offers support for networks of telescopes, spectroscopy, Phase I and Phase II iterations, collaborations, time-charging across network boundaries, etc. The design is made using XML Schema from the start rather than DTD's (RTML 1.1, RTML eStar) or Microsoft's "data-reduced" schema (RTML 2.1). Here is a preliminary write-up of the proposed syntax in its present (Version 3.0c) form.