<title>Remote observing at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF)</title>

Abstract

The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea now offers observers the opportunity to carry out their observations remotely. They can choose to work from the mid-level station at Hale Pohaku, from a dedicated remote observing room at the Institute for Astronomy in Hilo, or from their home institution. As a test of our remote capabilities, observations have been successfully obtained by observers from an office at the Observatoire de Paris in Meudon, France. Their observing program utilized SpeX, the IRTF's low- to medium-resolution near-IR spectrograph and imager, to measure the 0.8-2.5 micron reflectance spectra of fast moving, near-Earth asteroids. All target acquisition, guiding, and instrument control was commanded from Meudon. We describe this observing campaign, and provide details about the techniques we have developed for remote observing.