Burr

Taking the grind out of calibration.

Autonomous calibration and observation scheduling for rapid-deploy SDA telescopes.

Burr converts an observatory into a space domain awareness asset within days of deployment. It autonomously collects twilight flats, photometric standards, calibration satellite passes, sky coverage maps, and lunar background measurements -- all scheduled by lighting condition and time-share priority.

Burr is built off of the descriptions in Gazak et al. 2025, "Rapid Deployment, Calibration, and Training of Optical Observatories for Space Domain Awareness", AMOS Conference -- see Citation below if you use this software.

Requirements

• Python 3.13+
• uv package manager (for development installs)

Install

Install from PyPI (package name astro-burr, imports as burr):

pip install astro-burr

Optional extras:

pip install "astro-burr[sk]"      # SensorKit (NATS-based) control
pip install "astro-burr[direct]"  # direct ASCOM hardware control
pip install "astro-burr[senpai]"  # SENPAI image-processing integration
pip install "astro-burr[notify]"  # Slack notifications

Development install

This repo uses uv. First install uv, then:

make sync
source .venv/bin/activate

Configuration

Burr separates where you observe from how you observe:

• A site file (deploy/<site>/site.yaml) describes the observatory: coordinates, ASCOM/PWI4 hardware addresses, SensorKit entity names, notifications.
• A mode preset (deploy/presets/*.yaml) describes the observing strategy: which task sources run, exposure ranges, and scheduling balance.

You compose them at run time with --site + --preset. See deploy/example/ for a worked example and deploy/presets/ for the bundled modes (sda, science, survey).

Site section	Purpose
site	Coordinates and name (timezone auto-detected)
hardware	ASCOM device addresses, ports, active flags
sk	SensorKit entity names (for burr-sk)
weather	Rain/humidity thresholds and recovery timers
notifications	Slack channel for status updates
runtime	Output directory

Scheduling strategies

Each task source has a scheduling strategy:

• time_share -- target percentage of observing time (e.g. photometry 50%, coverage 30%)
• interval -- minimum minutes between runs (e.g. calsats every 10 min)
• one_shot -- run once per lighting condition (e.g. twilight flats)

Task sources

Source	What it collects	Typical window
twilight_flats	Flat field frames with auto-exposure adjustment	Nautical twilight
calsats	Calibration satellite TLE tracking passes	Twilight + night
photometric_standards	Landolt standard star observations with streaks	Night
coverage	Sparse sky maps (Fibonacci sphere sampling)	Night
lunar_background	Background measurements at angular separations from moon	Night

Quick Start

Direct mode (ASCOM hardware control)

burr-direct --site deploy/example/site.yaml --preset deploy/presets/sda.yaml

Connects to mount, camera, dome, and weather sensor via ASCOM Alpaca / PWI4. Runs all night autonomously -- opens dome at twilight, schedules observations by priority, closes dome at dawn or if weather deteriorates.

Simulation mode

Set hardware devices to active: false in your site file (or point them at the bundled ASCOM/PWI4 simulators under deploy/):

burr-direct --site deploy/example/site.yaml --preset deploy/presets/survey.yaml

SensorKit mode (NATS-based control)

burr-sk --site deploy/example/site.yaml --preset deploy/presets/sda.yaml

Runs as a SensorKit program/controller pair, integrating with the SensorKit agent framework for multi-system orchestration. Requires the sk extra. burr-sk --bootstrap --host <agent> discovers SK entities + site position from a running agent and emits a site.yaml fragment.

Safe shutdown

burr-shutdown --site deploy/example/site.yaml --preset deploy/presets/sda.yaml

Closes dome, slews to a bright star for verification, parks mount, disconnects.

Project Structure

src/burr/
    bootstrap.py              # Explicit engine init (no import-time side effects)
    cli/                      # CLI entrypoints (direct, shutdown, sk)
    core/                     # Config, constants, logging, notifications
    models/                   # Pydantic models (tracking, observation, site, run, hardware)
    task_source/              # Observation generators implementing the TaskSource protocol
    scheduler/                # Shared scheduler (strategies, slots, factory)
    hardware/
        factory.py            # Device creation from config
        direct/               # ASCOM control (runner, executor, weather monitor)
        sk/                   # SensorKit integration (program, controller, tasks)
    run/                      # Run state management and persistence
    utils/                    # Astronomy, ephemeris, SpaceTrack utilities

Credentials

Burr reads credentials from the environment (or a .env file), never from config:

• SPACETRACK_USERNAME / SPACETRACK_PASSWORD -- for SpaceTrack TLE downloads (calsats)
• SLACK_BOT_TOKEN -- for the optional Slack notifications (notify extra)

Output

Each night produces a run directory at {output_dir}/{site}_{YYYYMMDD}/:

example_20251201/
    data/           # FITS files (flats, science frames, darks)
    plots/          # Coverage maps, lighting schedules
    metadata/       # run_state.json (resumable)
    logs/           # Application logs
    catalogs/       # TLE catalogs

Runs auto-resume if interrupted. Starting again on the same night picks up where it left off.

Citation

Burr implements the system described in:

Gazak, J. Z., Swindle, R., Morales, S., Phelps, M., Iott, K., Blackhurst, E., & Fletcher, J. 2025, "Rapid Deployment, Calibration, and Training of Optical Observatories for Space Domain Awareness", Proceedings of the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference. doi:10.64861/XGPY2184

If you use Burr in your research, please cite this paper:

@inproceedings{Gazak2025Burr,
  title     = {Rapid Deployment, Calibration, and Training of Optical Observatories for Space Domain Awareness},
  author    = {Gazak, J. Zachary and Swindle, Ryan and Morales, Sierra and Phelps, Matthew and Iott, Kevin and Blackhurst, Eric and Fletcher, Justin},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference},
  year      = {2025},
  doi       = {10.64861/XGPY2184}
}

License

MIT