Synopsis

fork- option allows multiple connections. No sanity check is made on these connections and it is up to the user not to move the telescope in two different directions at the same time.

debug - prints out the transactions to the PMAC and other control cards.

Telescope Commands

In the following optional arguments are indicated in [] brackets. Floating point numbers input are denoted as %f, integer values as %d. All commands have the help option that lists the available keywords.

BEEP

Pulses the klaxon in the dome. The quick keyword does it for a short time.

DOME

Reports back the azimuth of the dome.

Example:
tx dome
done dome az=178.1 

If the dome has not been homed, an ERROR message is generated.

The center option causes the dome shutter to be centered at the proper azimuth for the telescope to look out. The dome will only move if necessary unless overridden by the force keyword. If the dome actually moves it returns the keyword moved in its reply.

The dome can be rotated to the azimuth set by the put= command. If the dome power is not on, the power will be turned on with a short delay before moving. Use the power command to turn off the dome power. The azimuth is in degrees from north (East is 90.0). The range is between 0 and 360 degree, inclusive.

If the windscreen keyword is used, then an error message will appear if the windscreen blocks the telescope.

If the dome is currently at the home position, the dome command will return with the extra keyword athome.

ENCODER

Reads the telescope position encoders in decimal degrees. No corrections are applied. It prints out a line like:

done encoder ha=0.095 dec=-6.220 dha=0.000 ddec=0.000 bar=805.7 oat=2.5

The bar and oat values are the barometric pressure in millibars and outside air temperature in degrees Celsius. These are used to calculate the refraction. They can be set by command line options.

FOCUS

Moves the telescope secondary to the desired focus position in mils.

If the requested or the reported secondary position value is outside of the legal range of motion the position report will be prefaced by the word ERROR instead of done. The range of motion can be determined by using the keyword, help. The range checking can be removed by putting the keyword override in front of the mils= statement. This doesn't override the mechanical limit switches only the readback.

HOME

Homes the selected axes. This command is equivalent to the home included in the individual point, focus, and dome All of the telescope encoders are incremental and need to have the absolute position determined; the home command accomplishes this.

Note:Some axes may take minutes to home.

If the encoder has been homed in the past the dome command will home in the direction that causes the shortest dome motion. If the encoder has not been homed it goes to the right. You can override these directions by the domel and domer commands which cause the homing to occur towards the left and right respectively.

The force option forces the home flag to be true without actually doing the homing. It must be placed on the command line before the axes that are to be forced.

INTERLOCKS

Reports back the status of the

• the estop emergency stop button
• the state of the mechanical floor
• the state of the pier limits
• the state of the tilt sensors
• the ups

Example:
tx interlocks
done interlocks estop=off floor=off pier=off  tilt=off

The telescope will not move in any direction if the estop or the floor are active.

The telescope will only move north if the tilt is active.

The telescope will not move north or west if the pier is active.

The ups will report off when running on mains power and active when running on batteries.

LIMITS

Returns the status of the East/West and North/South limit switches. It returns a string like

done limits east=off west=off north=active south=off

MIRROR

Controls the mirror cover on the telescope. Returns with done mirror xx where xx is either open or close depending on the status after the command is issued. If open or close is requested and the status disagrees, an error message is issued.

It takes about 40 seconds to open or close the mirror. Ideally the mirror should be pointed near the zenith before closing. The program does not check if this is the case.

If the mirror is partially open or closed the following ERROR message will be generated.

ERROR mirror mirror in mixed state

OFFSET

Offsets the telescope from its present position where the values are in decimal degrees.

The dome will not be adjusted and the current epoch will be used.

If the cos keyword is specified the motion is corrected (increased) by 1.0/cos(declination).

Note:No limit checking is done before the move.

PADDLE

Changes the gain on the paddle or how far an offset is made for each second the button is depressed. The gain is a floating point number that has to be determined experimentally.

The type can be 0 for slow/set motions with tracking or between 1 and 100 for faster motions. The latter is for maintenance use only and will timeout to Set mode in about an hour. The gain value has no meaning for the maintenance mode as the speeds and accelerations are set by the Ix19 and Ix22 PMAC motor variables. Changing the gain will cause the paddle to revert to type 0.

The command returns how many seconds before the timeout occurs.

POINT

point ra=hh:mm:ss.s dec=dd:mm:ss [equinox=yyyy] [nodome] [nobeep] [finder] [nopcorr] [raw] 
point ra=%f dec=%f decimal [equinox=yyyy] [nodome] [nobeep] [finder] [nopcorr] [raw] 

point ra=%f dec=%f decimal [equinox=yyyy] [nodome] [nobeep] [finder] [nopcorr] [raw] 
point ha=%f dec=%f decimal [equinox=yyyy] [nodome] [nobeep] [finder] [nopcorr] [raw] 

Positions the telescope to the RA and Dec specified. If the equinox to which the coordinates are referred is not specified the current epoch (today) will be used. The coordinates should be mean catalog positions of the current epoch; see where command for more details.

The telescope will respond with done when pointed to within its tolerance. The dome will be moved unless the nodome option is specified.

If the interlocks are violated an error message will be issued.

An error message will be issued if the axes are not homed. Use the home command to do this.

If the decimal option is specified the ra (or ha) and dec are to be specified in decimal degrees.

If the nopcorr option is specified, the telescope is pointed to the coordinates without using the telescope pointing corrections. Refraction, nutation, aberration are still used.

The raw option points the telescope without using any corrections.

If coordinates are specified with the ra= option, the telescope must be tracking at a near sidereal rate, otherwise an error message will be issued. If coordinates are specified with the ha= option, the telescope must be not be tracking, otherwise an error message will be issued.

If the finder option is specified the dome will be positioned for the finder to peek out the slit.

Examples:
point ra=14:14 dec=19:19
point ha=4.856 dec=10.430 decimal nodome

See Also: where

POWER

power is catch all command to turn of the servo control of all axes. You might want to do this to balance the telescope or twist the gears by hand. It also can help regain manual control of the dome azimuth if the computer holds control by mistake.

There is no corresponding on command as the other commands such as track, offset, point, dome do it automatically as needed.

The command dec=off only turns off the dec servo following. It is used for testing and may have side effects.

TEL_STATUS

Example:
tx tel_status
done tel_status name=1.3meter obs=MDM lat=31.95000 long=-111.61670 elev=1925.0 east=-78.0 west=76.0 north=90.0 south=-36.0 alt=15.0 scale=20.72 type=equat

Where the East Longitude, latitude and limits are in decimal degrees; the elevation is in meters above sea level. The name is the name of the telscope, while obs specifies the name of the observatory. The limits to the telescope motion are specified in degrees. The scale is in arc-seconds per mm. The type of telescope is an equatorial.

Note: The values reported by this command (not necessarily the example above) are considered the authoritative values.

TEMPS

Returns the values of the telescope sensor temperatures in degrees Celsius.

Look at Device page for more details.

TRACK

Sets the telescope tracking rate. When used without arguments it simply returns the current track rate in arc seconds per second. Note: the tracking is turned on for one hour and must be re-initialize by a track, offset, or point command.

The on keyword set the tracking to the sidereal rate (ha=15.04 dec=0).

Using the ha= and dec= allow you to set the rates explicitly in arc seconds per second. The values are limited only by the slew rate of the telescope.

Using ra= sets the tracking above or below the sidereal rate in arc-seconds per seconds.

The local option adjusts the tracking rate to the value determined by the derivative of the pointing coefficients at the hour angle and declination that the telescope is currently pointing. It cannot be combined with the ra, ha, or dec options.

WHERE

Reports the telescope position.

Example:
tx where
done where ra=06:50:8.04 dec=+31:57:28 equinox=2006.4 
   ha=-0.016 secz=1.00 alt=90.0 az=97.2

• pointing errors
• zero point (cra,cdec)
• refraction
• nutation
• annual aberration

The hour angle, altitude and azimuth are all reported in decimal degrees. The secant of the zenith angle is unitless.

The azimuth is that of where the telescope is pointing and is not necessarily the azimuth the dome should be pointing.

If either the HA or Dec encoder has not been homed, an ERROR message will occur. Use the home command to correct.

The decimal option causes the RA and Dec to be reported in decimal degrees rather than sexagesimal hours/degrees.

ZERO

zero [ra=hh:mm:ss.s] [dec=dd:mm:ss] [equinox=yyyy]
zero [last]
zero [cra=%f] [cdec=%f]  

The additive constants can be set manually by specifying them on the command line. The values revert to 0.0 when the program is restarted.