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Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VI ASP Conference Series, Vol. 125, 1997 Gareth Hunt and H. E. Payne, eds.

WinTICS-24 Version 2.0 and PFITS--An Integrated Telescope/CCD Control Interface
R. Lee Hawkins Whitin Observatory, Wel lesley Col lege David Berger and Ian Hoffman Foggy Bottom Observatory, Colgate University Abstract. WinTICS-24 Version 2.0 is a telescop e control system interface and observing assistant, that provides the ability to control a telescop e and guide-acquire module, along with a suite of utilities to assist observers. PFITS is a suite of scripts for taking data in PMIS, with the ability to construct very comprehensive FITS headers by using data supplied to PFITS from WinTICS-24.

1.

History

WinTICS is an evolution TICS-24, an integrated telescop e control system (TCS) written by Hawkins & Ratcliff (1993) for the Macintosh in Hyp erCard. While sharing the general design philosophy of TICS-24, WinTICS is much more flexible and extensible.

2.

User Interface and Communications

The WinTICS user interface is a windowing interface written in Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows 95/NT. While mimicking somewhat the DFM Engineering TCS screen layout, WinTICS adds to the DFM TCS commands to give a more complete observer interface. Controls are group ed by function, and color is used to indicate normal (green), caution (yellow), or abnormal (red) telescop e and instrument conditions. All site-sp ecific settings are configurable by the observer. All observer input is checked for range validity, and whether the target p osition is closer than an observer-set limit to the Sun and/or Moon. Additionally, WinTICS contains a complete hyp ertext help system describing every window and control. WinTICS communicates with the remote TCS by sending ASCI I commands over a serial p ort. Although originally develop ed for DFM TCS, WinTICS could easily b e adapted to any other TCS that accepts ASCI I commands over a serial p ort, simply by changing the appropriate commands and rebuilding the package. Each set of controls will b e describ ed b elow. The main WinTICS window is shown in Figure 1. 405

© Copyright 1997 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. All rights reserved.


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Figure 1. 3. Position Readouts

The WinTICS-24 Main Window.

WinTICS communicates with the native telescop e TCS to get and display the following p osition information for b oth the current telescop e p osition and the next ob ject: Hour Angle, Right Ascension, Declination, Ep och, Airmass, and Zenith Distance. In addition to the coordinates of the telescop e, WinTICS also displays the focus p osition in ADUs, the dome p osition in degrees, and the X-Y p osition of the Guide-Acquire Module (GAM) guide prob e. 4. Telescop e and GAM Control and Status

On the right side of the main WinTICS window are controls for movement and initialization of the telescop e. These controls are as follows: Set Position: Controls for slewing the telescop e to coordinates, library ob ject by numb er, the zenith, and the cover p osition for removal/replacement of the telescop e covers. Initialize: Controls for initializing the telescop e, dome, and focus p ositions, setting the date/time and ep och of precession, and moving the GAM filters and mirrors to known p ositions. Misc. Controls: Controls for offsetting the telescop e in RA and Dec, trailing a star along the sp ectrograph slit, moving to a given focus p osition, and moving the GAM guide prob e to a new X-Y p osition. The Switches 2 b ox contains check b oxes to turn the Guider flag, dome, rate correction (first derivative of the p ointing model), and cosine of the declination for guide rate on/off. Additionally, this b ox contains messages that tell the ob-


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server whether the remote TCS is initialized or not. The Status b ox contains "virtual LEDs" that display the status of various telescop e modes: Tracking, Trailing, Setting, Slewing, Limits, GAM, Aux Track, Drives, and Dome OK. In the Start/Stop/Up date b ox are three buttons, two of which are applicable here. The green traffic light starts a slew, and the red Stop sign cancels an enabled slew. On the middle left of the main WinTICS window are controls for the GAM: Filters: Position of the axial and south p ort filter wheels. Beam Selector: Stage: The p osition of the stage that carries the b eam selector mirror. In the stowed p osition, the b eam goes through the axial p ort and imaging filter to a CCD. In the On-Beam p osition, the b eam is directed to either the north, south, east, or west radial p orts by a 45 flat mirror. Port: The radial p ort to which the b eam is b eing directed. Switches 1 gives the status of 8 digital I/O lines on the GAM controller. Six of these are in turn connected to solid state relays which switch outlets on and off.

5.

Observing Utilities and Time Status Bar

Perhaps the most useful part of WinTICS is the observing utilities, found in the Utilities b ox along the b ottom of the main WinTICS window. From left to right, these are: Ob ject: The name of an ob ject to look up in the WinTICS ob ject database. If the ob ject is found, then the coordinates are automatically sent to the remote TCS and a slew is enabled. If the ob ject is not found, a window is brought up that allows the observer to add the ob ject to the WinTICS ob ject database, then slew to the ob ject. Look Up: Look up the ob ject given in the Ob ject b ox. Finder: Bring up a finder chart centered on the current telescop e coordinates from the Guide CD ROM, with a b ox the size of the CCD field of view overlaid on the chart. Planner: Bring up an eclipsing binary star time of minimum prediction for the ob ject given in the Ob ject b ox (Downey & Hawkins 1995). Prob e Pos: Move the guide prob e to the predefined p osition for the the ob ject given in the Ob ject b ox. Moon: Brings up a graphical view of the phase of the Moon, accurate to a day or so (Craig 1993). Log File: Brings up a window to make an entry into an observing log file to b e filled out by the observer, detailing the observers, program, and comments. Trouble: Brings up a window to enter problems into a trouble log file. Web: Brings up a window that communicates via DDE with a Web browser to display frequently accessed Web pages (e.g., weather forecasts and images). In addition to these options, there is a button on the Time Preferences tab which dials the Naval Observatory and resets the PC's internal clock (Craig 1993). (See also NTP supp ort, b elow.) Below the Utilities section on the WinTICS main screen is a status bar that displays the p osition of the Sun and Moon, along with the time in various formats. The backgrounds of these fields change color dep ending on whether the Moon/Sun is up/down and the twilight typ e (civil, nautical, or astronomical). The fields are up dated once p er minute, and the times are accurate to ±1 minute. From left to right, they are: Moon: Percent illumination of the Moon, Moon up/down, and altitude of the Moon in degrees. Sun: Sun up/down or twilight typ e and the altitude of the Sun in degrees. Times: The current time is displayed in the following formats: UT, UT Date, ST, JD, and Local. All these times except Local come from TCS. Local comes from the WinTICS computer system clock. In turn, the WinTICS computer system clock can b e up dated via the Network


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Time Protocol by supplying the hostname of an NTP server and enabling NTP up dates on the Time Preferences tab. 6. Coordinate/Status File

Each time the telescop e coordinates are up dated or a filter is changed, WinTICS writes a log file entry containing the telescop e coordinates, filter p ositions, and status of the telescop e and switches. These are written as FITS format keywords, which can then b e read by a CCD control program such as PMIS (Remington 1995) to b e merged into the image header for the current observation. This file essentially allows WinTICS to act as the "glue" b etween the telescop e TCS and the data acquisition system. The author and a series of students have written a suite of scripts for PMIS called PFITS (Berger & Hawkins 1995; Hoffman & Hawkins 1996) that greatly simplifies and automates data taking, including incorp orating the FITS keywords written by WinTICS into the image headers. 7. Conclusions

When compared to the typical native telescop e control system, WinTICS provides an observer interface that is more easily and quickly understood at a glance. In addition, its incorp oration of various utilities for observation planning and execution makes WinTICS much more p owerful than most vendor-supplied TCSs. Anyone interested in receiving more information on WinTICS should contact the author at lhawkins@wellesley.edu, or have a look at the WinTICS homepage.1 Acknowledgments. This pro ject was made p ossible by NSF-ARI grant AST9413335 and a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium. References Berger, D., & Hawkins, R. L. 1995, in Proceedings of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium (Poughkeepsie, NY: Vassar) Craig, J. C. 1993, Visual Basic Workshop (Redmond, WA: Microsoft), 33 and 428 Hawkins, R. L., & Downey, K. F. 1995, BAAS, 27, 1931 Hawkins, R. L., & Ratcliff, S. J. 1993, BAAS, 25, 1364 Hoffman, I., & Hawkins, R. L. 1996, in Proceedings of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium (Wellesley, MA: Wellesley) Kelly, M. 1995, DFM TCS-24 User's Guide (Longmont, CO: DFM) Remington, G. K. 1995, PMIS User's Guide (Boulder, CO: GKRCC)

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http://www.astro.wellesley.edu/lhawkins/tics/ticsIntro.html