commands Leuschner 30
- Login to thirty@leuschner.berkeley.edu
- Communicate with the telescope and
instruments: tx
- Print available commands: tx help
- To get help for a particular command: tx command help
Telescope
Commands List - check here if you can't find what you need on this
page
Weather
> tx temps prints weather information from
Leuschner's weather station. No observing if rain is anything but 0.
Scripts
to start and end observing
>
openup power
on, check if slit can be opened, open the slit, keepopen the slit, send
dome home, move secondary mirror to 595 mils, open primary mirror cover,
turn tracking on, set offsets for good pointing.
> closedown power on, turn tracking
off, send telescope home (tx point ha=0 dec=37), close mirror,
close slit, send dome home, rotate flip mirror to face down (tx flip
put=102),
power off
Telescope Power
> tx power print
the state of telescope power, on or off
> tx power on turn power on
> tx power off turn power off
Moving the Telescope
| Limits |
Switches
|
Software
|
East
|
HA <-55°
|
HA=-52°=-3:25
|
West
|
HA >+55°
|
HA=+52°=+3:25
|
North
|
Dec=+63°
|
Dec=+60°
|
South
|
Dec=-6°
|
Dec=-6°
|
Rules for moving the telescope:
1. Don't point the telescope close to a limit.
2. The offset command ignores the software limits listed.
3. Turn tracking off when you are close to a HA limit or are not taking
images; tracking ignores software limits (but not hardware!)
Note: HA = LST - RA
> tx point ha=0 dec=37 move the
telescope to its home position
> tx point ra=18:36:56.2 dec=38:47:01 epoch=2000
move the telescope with epoch 2000 coordintes
> tx offset dec=-.01
Move the telescope north 0.01 degrees
> tx offset dec=.01 ha=-0.01 cos
Move the telescope north 0.01 degrees and east 0.01
degrees on the sky.
> tx where
print the
current position of the
telescope
> tx tel_status
returns values of telescope software limits
> tx abort_telescope abort a telescope move
> tx move_status print the move
status
Limit Swtiches
If you are getting the message tx power off when you don't
want it, you may have hit a telescope limit. Ask for help before you
try the
following steps. (1) tx where - to find out which limit is hit,
(2)tx
power on, (3) tx offset - select the correct direction away from the
switch.
Information
> lst
find the Local Sidereal Time
> bright see the
options for bright command
> bright ra=12:22 dec=33 faint=4 bright=1
find the brightest star, no fainter than 4th mag, no
brighter than 1st mag, centered around ra and dec
Pipes
> bright ra=`lst` dec=30 | dopoint
Point to a bright star near the
meridian, note: the quotes are backward
Tracking
Tracking starts with the 'openup' script.
Tracking stops with the 'closedown' script.
Tracking does not check the software HA limits and the telescope may
hit a switch. (Bad form!)
Turn tracking off when you are close to a HA limit or are not taking
images.
> tx track on turn on tracking
> tx track off turn off tracking
> tx track print the
current track rate
If tracking is on, rates should be ha=.004175 dec=0.00000.
Focusing
Focusing moves the secondary mirror to increase or decrease the
distance between the secondary and primary mirror.
The focus indicator reads out in mils (1/1000 of an inch ). Secondary
technical details
here
- The home position is at 0 mils
- Typical IR camera focus is 595 mils
- Maximum travel is 1360 mils
- Values outside of 0 - 1360 indicate errors. To correct:
tx move_sec home
- Around 80 seconds is required to move the secondary from home to
595 mils.
- There is backlash with the mechanism.
> tx move _sec
Print current
location of secondary mirror.
> tx move_sec home
Move the secondary to the home position.
> tx move_sec mils=595
Move the secondary to position 595 mils
Dome
The dome does not automatically move when the telescope is tracking.
> tx dome center
Ex: Center the slit on the telescope's
pointing.
> tx dome put=270 move the
dome to 270° (slit pointing east)
> tx dome home
move the dome to the home (180°=slit
pointing South)
Slit
Slit will close after 5 minutes if the 'keepopen' command is not sent
> tx slit
print the
status of the slit (open or
closed)
> tx slit open
open the slit
> tx slit keepopen don't close the
slit after 5 minutes
> tx slit closed
If dome is stuck try moving it one way then the other.
Primary Mirror Cover
tx mirror
print the state of the mirror
tx mirror open open the mirror cover
tx mirror close close the mirror cover
Flip Mirror
Before taking a picture make sure that the flip mirror is in the proper
position.
tx flip put=12 #for ircam
tx flip put=237 #for SETI counter
tx flip put=328 #for Apogee 47p CCD
If the power has gone off, or the servers restarted recently, the flip
mirror will need to be first homed.
IR Camera
> tx ccd_status check
the status of the IRCAM. Ensure: tchip <100K, seq = Fowler
Filters
The six position filter wheel has the following filters:
- num=0=H
- slot=1=J
- slot=2=Kshort
- slot=3=open (no filter)
- slot=4=blank (aluminum plug)
- slot=5=blank
> tx filter
print
the filter currently in use
> tx filter help
print the filter names
> tx filter home
move the filter wheel to the home position
> tx filter name=H move
the H filter into place
> tx filter name=Kshort move the Kshort filter into
place
> tx filter name=blank for dark images
Filter Error Messages
If you get an error message indicating a non-integer filter number, the
filter is not centered on the entrance aperture.
To correct: home the filter wheel, then move to desired filter.
More details can be found in the discussion of the rfilter
command.
Note: Slot 0 is just clockwise of the home index hole, when looking
at the filterwheel as the filters are installed.
Images Save your images to thirty@fast
~/group9/
> qimage time=1 outfile=vega.ks.1s.fits
aquire a 1 second image
Copying files to ugastro
When logged into ugastro, copy ~/group9/image.fits from fast
the local directory
scp thirty@leuschner.berkeley.edu:group9/image.fits .
When logged into ugastro, synchronize files on the local directory with
those on fast
rsync -e ssh -av thirty@leuschner.berkley.edu:group9/ .
leuschner.berkeley.edu = 128.32.197.194
