  The Rapid Telescope for Optical Response (RAPTOR) program consists of a
network of robotic telescopes dedicated to the search for fast optical
transients. The pilot project is composed of three observatories separated by
approximately 38 kilometers located near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Each of these
observatories is composed of a telescope, mount, enclosure, and weather
station, all operating robotically to perform individual or coordinated
transient searches. The telescopes employ rapidly slewing mounts capable of
slewing a 250 pound load 180 degrees in under 2 seconds with arcsecond
precision. Each telescope consists of wide-field cameras for transient
detection and a narrow-field camera with greater resolution and sensitivity.
The telescopes work together by employing a closed-loop system for transient
detection and follow-up. Using the combined data from simultaneous
observations, transient alerts are generated and distributed via the Internet.
Each RAPTOR telescope also has the capability of rapidly responding to external
transient alerts received over the Internet from a variety of ground-based and
satellite sources. Each observatory may be controlled directly, remotely, or
robotically while providing state-of-health and observational results to the
client and the other RAPTOR observatories. We discuss the design and
implementation of the spatially distributed RAPTOR system.
