Astronomy Common Object Model

ASCOM (an abbreviation for AStronomy Common Object Model) is an open initiative to provide a standard interface to a range of astronomy equipment including mounts, focusers and imaging devices in a Microsoft Windows environment.

ASCOM was invented in late 1997 and early 1998 by Bob Denny, when he released two commercial programs and several freeware utilities that showcased the technology. He also induced Doug George to include ASCOM capabilities in commercial CCD camera control software.

The first observatory to adopt ASCOM was Junk Bond Observatory, in early 1998. It was used at this facility to implement a robotic telescope dedicated to observing asteroids. The successful use of ASCOM there was covered in an article in Sky & Telescope magazine. This helped ASCOM to become more widely adopted.

The ASCOM standards were placed under the control of the ASCOM Initiative, a group of astronomy software developers who volunteered to develop the standards further. Under the influence of Denny, George, Tim Long, and others, ASCOM developed into a set of device driver standards. In 2004, over 150 astronomy-related devices were supported by ASCOM device drivers, which were released as freeware. Most of the drivers are also open source.

As ASCOM developed, the term became less associated with the Component Object Model, and has been used more broadly to describe not only the standards and software based on them, but also to describe an observing system architecture and a robotic telescope design philosophy. In 2004, ASCOM remained formally a reference to the Component Object Model, but the term is expected to stand on its own as new technologies such as Microsoft .NET take over functions provided by the Component Object Model, and additional ASCOM projects are adopted that dilute its concentration on device drivers.

The release of version 6 of the ASCOM Platform in June 2011 marked a transition to an open source development paradigm, with several developers contributing to the effort and all of the platform source code being made available under a Creative Commons license. Initially, the Platform developer team used servers hosted by TiGra Networks (Long's IT consulting company) for source code control, issue tracking and project management, with server licenses contributed by Atlassian and JetBrains. In 2012, due in part to differences in development style, TiGra Networks' involvement with the software development effort ceased and the source code was relocated to SourceForge.

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