Telescope control system

Also during this semester various minor upgrades were implemented and work is progressing on the documentation and the logging system.

The TCS Display application which provides a small window with basic TCS information (coordinates, telescope status, etc) and can be run from anywhere in the observing system is being expanded to include information from the guide star system (e.g., relative position of the star, total measured intensity) such that the guide process can be monitored. The specific objective is to provide this for the NORDFORSK remote observing school this summer.

The number of status parameters for the telescope that are recorded in the data base has been further expanded. This make them accessible on the data acquisition computer which can be used in observing scripts.

A new option has been implemented that allows to send any command to the TCS from the sequencer as if one where at the TCS terminal itself. These commands can be any available TCS command with a few exceptions like `power-on', `open-upper-hatch', etc. for safety reasons. This option is only intended for `expert' users as there is no build-in communication with the TCS in this option, e.g., the system does not wait to complete the command before continuing with a script. The general idea is that this on the one hand gives full capability to scripting observations while it should also show quickly what are often used commands that would benefit from becoming true sequencer commands.

Thomas Augusteijn 2008-11-14