Chimera is a package for control of astronomical observatories, aiming at the creation of remote and even autonomous ("robotic") observatories in a simple manner. Using Chimera you can easily control telescopes, CCD cameras, focusers and domes in a very integrated way.

Chimera is:

Distributed

Fully distributed system. You can use different machines to control each instrument and everything will looks like just one.

Powerful

Very powerful autonomous mode. Give a target and exposure parameters and Chimera does the rest.

Hardware friendly

Support for most common off-the-shelf components. See plugins page for supported devices.

Extensible

Very easy to add support for new devices. See plugins page for more information.

Flexible

Chimera can be used in a very integrated mode but also in standalone mode to control just one instrument.

Free

It's free (as in free beer), licensed under the GNU license.

A Python Package

All these qualities are the consequence of the chosen programming language: Python.

.. toctree::
   :hidden:
   :maxdepth: 2

   gettingstarted
   using
   configuring
   plugins
   advanced
   chimerafordevs

If you need help on setting chimera on your observatory, please contact us over our mailing list.

Bugs and feature requests can be sent over our GitHub page.

Chimera OCS v1.0 can be cited by the DOI below.

Chimera is Free/Open Software licensed by GPL v2 or later (at your choice).