Telescope Control System

Additional data from the TCS were included in the data base to make almost all relevant TCS data easily accessible for investigations and statistics. The software responsible for sending and logging telemetric data from the TCS has been updated to handle more than a 1000 parameter updates two times per second, very valuable for fault tracing. We are now close to the capacity of the data base system.

A front end User Interface to the TCS running on a regular Linux PC is being developed. The main idea is to integrate the TCS interface as much as possible with the rest of the observing system, but might also allow for certain applications like the auto-guider to be run from the PC directly. Some work went into designing and writing software that will enable the capture of data from the current TCS using its current user interface, to avoid having to redesign that part of the software. This software will allow us to show the old user interface, as an ``engineering mode'', but also means ``super users'' will have access to the old interface. This component of the system is modular and will be integrated in a graphical interface that will be developed as the next step.

Some improvements to the TCS were made including a check of the telescope counterweight setting when the instrument mounted at the main Cassegrain focus is specified. The instrument setting is also included in logging data so variations in pointing can be traced as a function of instrument. A warning was added to the TCS in case the access code is changed from the control room user interface since this code is fundamental in scripted observing. Supervision of the data rate from TCS to the data base has been implemented to warn in case the rate goes down. This can effect the data consistency when using not yet updated data.

There have been various reports of the TCS getting stuck which were likely traced to an intermittent disc access failure on the CPU board. Using a second CPU board have shown no more problems and a replacement boards will be purchased as spare.