Program Documentation
These programs are available in ~mdm/bin.
You can find an alphabetic list here.
Device Servers
The most basic level of the observatory is the device servers.
Here is an listing of server keywords.
The protocol is discussed here.
Each of the observatory devices has a server program associated with it.
The observatory functions are invoked by the tx command.
These are described below.
- rtel- telescope server
- rslit- slit and weather server
Some helpful programs for accessing the servers are:
- startnet- server starter script
- tserver- server concatenating program
- tx- server message transmitter program
And some simulators:
Observatory Control Programs
- closedown - shutdown the observatory
- keepopen - keep the slit open
- openup - prepare the observatory to observe
- show - log and process display
Finder Control Programs
- fimage- finder image acquisition program
Astronomical Programs
A variety of astronomical programs are used within the scripts.
- altaz -converts ra/dec to altitude azimuth
- apparent -computes apparent celestial position
- asteroid -calculates minor planet positions
- bright -finds bright stars positions
- dist -calculates angular distances
- jd -prints out the current Julian date
- lst -prints out the local sidereal time
- moon -prints out the RA and Dec of the moon
- nomad -finds stars positions from USNO Nomad
- precess -precesses RA and Dec to different epochs
- sun -prints out the RA and Dec of the sun
- ut -prints out the current Universal time
Motor Controller Programs
These should only be used by experts.
- pdecode -PMAC status decoder
- pputs -PMAC communication tool
- pstep -PMAC sampling tool
X-Window Programs
Miscellaneous Programs
- cubic -cubic equation solver
- dopoint -script formats coordinates for point command
- extract -pull out timestamped data
- getkey -keyword/value program
- linfit -least square fitting program
- nobaby -converts Hour:Minute:Second format to decimal
- ok -ask whether to continue or not
- poly -polynomial evaluator
- rand -prints out random number
- stderr -writes to standard error rather than standard out
- tobaby -converts decimal to Hour:Minute:Second format
- weatherd -weather logger
MDM Index