aat Acta Astrophys. Tau. Acta Astrophysica Taurica 2712-925X Kiselev Nikolai Nikolaevich, Mosсow, settlement Moskovskii, Tat'yanin Park Str., 12, Moscow, Russia. RU 127 TPMFWC Instruments and Methods Automatic control system for small telescopes at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Rumyantsev Vasilii Biryukov Vadim Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Nauchny 298409 Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Nauchny 298409 26 06 2026 7 2 12 19 17 06 2026 Copyright (c) 2026 Vasilii Rumyantsev, Vadim Biryukov 2026 Vasilii Rumyantsev, Vadim Biryukov The metadata for this submission is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyright and publishing rights for texts published in Acta Astrophysica Taurica is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal.Texts are free to use with proper attribution and link to the licensing (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International).

We present a software and hardware complex of the control system for small telescopes (D = 20–64 cm), which is primarily used to observe objects in near-Earth space and those in the Solar system (comets, asteroids). The complex allows observing both in operator mode and fully automatically, according to a given program. This makes it possible to implement various observation methods: surveys of the selected areas of the sky, search and tracking of objects according to target designations. The angular velocities of tracked objects can reach about 1 deg/sec. The complex provides power supply management for telescope components, control of the telescope mount drives, and operation of auxiliary equipment. The roof of the pavilion is also controlled. Full control of the telescope camera is organized, from power supply and cooling to setting exposure and transferring frames to the image processing system. Failure- free operation for 16 years has demonstrated the reliability of the developed system. The acquisition of more than 20 million measurements of coordinate and photometric information has shown its efficiency. The control system is being gradually improved and is expected to be robotic in the future.

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