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TCSng Rough Operating Notes 10/26/15
Cold Start Power Up Seqence
UPS Room
In Dome
Check to see if any electronics are plugged into the east or west orange outlets on the base of the telescope. If so, make sure they are turned off.
Turn on Main Power.
Turn on Telescope Power.
Plug in associated power cables for instrumentation into orange outlets under scope if not plugged in already.
M4K
East Orange Outlet:
Camera power supply
Shutter power supply
West orange outlet
Guider chiller
Powerstrip
Turn on instrument
M4K
Camera power dupply
Shutter power supply
Powerstrip
Guider chiller
Guider/Filter wheel bok
Guider power supply
Control Room
Starting TCSng
Log into Gerard using the kuiper password on the white board.
Double Click “Safe Telescope Button” icon.
Double Click “Paddle” icon.
Double click “INDI Server” icon.
Double Click “Xephem” icon.
Click “RT” button under looping if Xephem is not updating the time.
Click “View” and Select “Sky View”.
In the “INDI Panel” window that opens connect to each of the following modules:
Expand “TCS-NG-INDI”
Expand “Dome-NG-INDI”
Dome Control
Connection
ON
Expand “FOCUS-NG-INDI”
Focus Control
Connection
ON
You should now have information in each module updating regularly.
Stopping the Telescope (From the Control Room)
Five wasy to stop the telescope when moving
Use the Large “Cancel” button from the “Safe Telescope Program”
Use F9 key to cancel motion and ramp down speed (note: this does not stop the telescope from tracking )
Use the F10 Key to disable the telescope, this is a hard stop, only use in emergency!
In the “Indi Panel” window
TCS Module
Emergency Stop button on old blue TCS rack (last resort!)
Moving the Telescope
YOU MUST FIRST GO INTO THE DOME AND MAKE SURE IT IS CLEAR TO MOVE THE SCOPE (ladders out of the way, elevator down etc).
For any move turn on the Dome Camera and watch the telescope until it gets to its target!
To Enable Telescope:
In Indi Control Panel:
Enter TCS-NG-INDI module
Telemetry
Actions
Click “Enable”
With the Sky View window
Equatorial Coordinates
In Indi control Panel:
Under TCS-NG-INDI
GOTO Functions
Enter Desired RA, Dec and Epoch
Click click “set” or hit the enter key
Then under “Actions” “hit Go Next”
Watch the telescope move in the Dome Camera!
Alt/Az coordinates:
In Indi Control Panel:
Under TCS-NG-INDI
GOTO Functions
Alt Az Goto
Enter the desired Altitude and Azimuth.
Click “Set” or hit the enter key.
Watch the telescope move in the dome camera
Observing
Initializing
Send the scope to a bright star close to the zenith
Using the software paddle, Center the star in the finder scope
Center the star in the science camera or guider.
In the “Actions” menu under TCS-NG-INDI Click “Init Next”.
Don't Click “Init Commanded” unless you are a very experienced user!
Focus
When starting up for the night it is usually a good idea to “Home” the focus
Under FOCUS-NG-INDI Homing and Focus Positions click home. The Focus pos should decrease and you should see HOMING in the text box at the top of the panel. Eventually it will reach the home switch, stop moving and zero the focus position.
Use the other Focus Instrument buttons to move to a nominal focus position.
Use the Focus Pos box to move the focus to a more precise position.
Limits:
In SkyView Window
Click “Control”
Click “Horizon”
A window w will pop up. Under file name you cab choose your horizon limit map. The correct map is “bigelow.hzn”
Click “save”
click “close”
Currently there is no indication (flashing etc) on the TCS screen that you have hit a limit
Software Limits
North
60 Degrees Declination
32 Degrees Elevation
South
5 Degrees Elevation
Hardware Limits
North Limit ~62 degrees declination
South Slew Limit 10 degrees elevation (~-48 Dec)
South Hard Limit 5 degrees elevation (~-43 Dec)
Catalogs
Selecting a catalog
In Xephem Main Window
Data
Files
Catalogs in list form
In Xephem Main Window
Data Menu
Index
The Index window will pop up. You can select an object by name.
If you click Telescope GoTo the “Next” coordinates will be populated in the Indi Panel
You can then click Go Next To move to that object.
To use the search function you must type in the name of the object exactly or it will return no results.
Operating Mont4k
Start the following programs by double clicking the desktop icon or typing there names in a terminal
Dataserver
Galilserver
fw-gui
DS9
Operating From the Dome
You can use Xephem and the Indi Panel on the laptop to control dome and telescope. In Winter Months the laptop is stored in the control room during the summer it is stored in the old TCS console in the dome.
Hardware Paddle
The hardware paddle can control the dome, focus and telescope. The default guide and drift (2 and 40 arcsecs/sec)rates are very slow for telescope operation. You can change these values in the rates section of the Indi Panel.
End of Normal Night of Observing