ADASS XII Conference

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Observatory operations - frontend

P6.1 CCD meets Geodetic Astronomy: The Digital Zenith Camera, a Geodetic State-of-the-art Instrument for Automatic Geographic Positioning in Real-Time

Christian Hirt (Institut fuer Erdmessung, University of Hanover)

The determination of positions on the earth's surface by using stars as celestial reference used to be the main task of practical astronomy in the past. Whereas the basic principle remained unvaried throughout the centuries, observation techniques changed - from purely visual to photographic methods. Today, the availability of CCD sensors lead to completely digital and automatic methods for the astronomical determination of geographic coordinates. Combined with GPS, these methods are applied in geodesy for the determination of vertical deflections and hence of the earth's gravity field.

In this presentation, a digital zenith camera developed at the Institut fuer Erdmessung, University of Hanover, is introduced as mighty geodetic state-of-the-art instrumentation for astronomical position determination. Using CCD technology for imaging zenithal stars, a GPS equipment for high-precision time measurement and the new powerful data processing system AURIGA (Automatic Real-time Image Processing System For Geodetic Astronomy), this configuration allows the determination of the geographic coordinates longitude and latitude based on a fully automatic procedure in real-time up to an accuracy of at least 0.2 arcseconds. The design and performance of the digital zenith camera are depicted. Main emphasis is laid on data acquisition and data processing by using AURIGA.

Besides a description of astrometric algorithms for image data reduction, the applicability of precise star catalogues Tycho-2, GSC, UCAC and A2.0 as reference for geographical position determination is discussed. Besides the high-precision determination of the earth's gravity field as main application area of the digital zenith camera, future applications like monitoring of near zenith atmospheric effects (systematic refraction and scintillation)are indicated.

P6.2 The Wonderful Worlds of the ITE

Leslie Zimmerman Foor (STScI)

The Integrated Test Environment (ITE) is a test environment designed by the Software Testing Team (STT) to simulate the HST planning and scheduling system from proposal development through the generation of the Science Mission Specification (SMS). More than just a mirror of the operational environment, the ITE allows users the flexibility of choosing the versions of the software they would like to use. Various configurations can be used simultaneously by multiple users on any number of machines. In fact, one user can have multiple configurations at the same time on one computer.

In addition to the testing flexibility, it also gives developers the ability to investigate operational problems by using operational data with operational versions of the software in their own environment without the risk of interfering with the daily operational work.

P6.3 A Generic Process Coordinator, Developed For The Planck-Surveyor Mission

Wolfgang Hovest, Frank Dannemann, Thomas Riller, Matthias Bartelmann

Planck is the third medium-sized mission of ESA's Horizon-2000 scientific programme. Starting in 2007, Planck will obtain full-sky maps in nine frequency bands in the microwave regime between 30 and 857 GHz. The primary goal of Planck is to map the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. The accurately measured angular power spectrum of the CMB will allow the precise determination of all relevant cosmological parameters. Planck will also test the inflationary model of the early universe. For the purpose of data reduction of the huge amount of data Planck will obtain and for simulation-purposes a process coordinator (ProC) is being developed. The ProC will allow to build up pipelines from single modules (written in FORTRAN, C, C++, or Java) and execute it in a distributed heterogeneous network in an automatic fashion. Besides the main results all parameters, all provisional results of the single modules of the pipeline and any information about the processing itself will be traced and saved in an oo-database. The current state of this Process Coordinator will be detailed.

P6.4 Extending ORAC-DR to Multiple Observatories

Brad Cavanagh, Paul Hirst, Malcolm J. Currie, Tim Jenness, Frossie Economou (Joint Astronomy Centre) Stuart Ryder (Anglo-Australian Observatory) Stephen P. Todd (Edinburgh University / UK Astronomy Technology Centre)

ORAC-DR, a flexible and extensible data reduction pipeline, has been successfully used for on-line data reduction for data from UFTI and IRCAM (infrared cameras), CGS4 (near-infrared spectrometer), MICHELLE (mid-infrared Echelle spectrometer), all at UKIRT, and SCUBA (sub-millimetre bolometer array) at JCMT. We have now added the infrared imager and spectrometer IRIS2 at the Anglo-Australian Telescope and the infrared imaging spectrometer UIST at UKIRT to the list of officially supported instruments. We also present initial support for the multi-object spectrograph GMOS, the near-infrared imager NIRI, and MICHELLE at Gemini. This paper briefly describes features of the pipeline, along with details of adopting ORAC-DR for other instruments on telescopes around the world.

P6.5 SIRTF Web Based Tools for QA and Instrument Performance Monitoring

Bob Narron, Irene Bregman, John White

The SIRTF Science Center is developing two Web based tools which will be used during operations. One tool is for Quality Analysis. It will allow the analysts to display images and plots of new data and then to record status and comments in the central database. The other tool is for display of Instrument Performance Monitoring data. It provides an easy to use way for the science staff to create plots and ASCII files of this data. Both tools use Java applets to display images and plots Perl for everything else. The standard Perl DBI interface is used to access the database

P6.6 Monitoring the Chandra X-ray Observatory via the Wireless Internet

Bradley D. Spitzbart, Scott J. Wolk

The Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in July 1999, continues to provide unprecedented high energy astrophysical discoveries with efficiency and reliability. From time to time, though, urgent operational decisions must be made by engineers, instrument teams, and scientists, often on short notice and at odd hours. There are several real-time, mostly Internet-based data resources available to aid in the decision-making discussions when a crisis arises. In addition, Chandra's Science Operations Team has been experimenting with emerging Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) technologies to create yet another pathway for data flow. Our WAP Internet pages provide anytime, anywhere access to critical spacecraft information through cellular phones or other WAP-enabled devices. We currently offer several dynamic web pages including a live telemetry stream, information on the radiation environment, the real-time contact schedule, the week's observing schedule, and contact information for key personnel. The protocol even allows CGI or other server-side executable code, which is implemented here to facilitate users' queries for past data sets. There are, of course, many challenges in attempting to present useful, meaningful content on a 5 X 12 character screen over limited bandwidth in a way that is user-friendly and beneficial. This paper will discuss our experience with this developing, promising new medium, design strategies, and future enhancements. This work is supported by NASA contract NAS8-39073.

P6.7 A Java-based Calibrator Search Tool for Radio Astronomy

Honglin Ye, John Benson (NRAO)

Astronomers using radio synthesis arrays often need to search for calibrator sources to be used during observations. The desired properties of the source depend upon the context: for example, sometimes a bright, somewhat resolved source close to the target is preferable to a more compact source further away. The desired brightness of the calibrator depends upon things like the array configuration, and atmospheric coherence time. For these reasons, human interaction is often the easiest and best way to select calibrators. With this in mind, we have designed a Java-based tool for selecting calibrators based upon information gathered by NRAO scientists from various information sources. This tool is based around a display of the target region of the sky, with known calibrator sources displayed accompanied by user-selectable annotation as to brightness and positional accuracy. Further information about selected sources is given in tabular and graphical forms. The light curve, spectra behavior, resolution curve, and a typical image can all be shown if desired. In connection with the development of this tool, we have merged several information sources into one database. This enables the tool to be used for VLA and VLBA observations.

The tool is currently being tested by NRAO scientists and will be made available to NRAO users later this year. The development of the tool is part of the NRAO End-to-End (e2e) project, which has the goal of providing automated, streamlined handling of radio observations on NRAO telescopes all the way from proposal submission to archive access. Further development of the calibrator search tool will focus on integration into the emerging overall toolset of the e2e project. Thus, for example, the calibrator search tool will ultimately be integrated with the tool for preparing an observation script.

P6.8 COSMOS-3: The 3rd Generation Telescope Control Software System of Nobeyama Radio Observatory

Koh-Ichiro Morita, Naomasa Nakai, Masatoshi Ohishi, Toshikazu Takahashi, Kazuhiko Miyazawa (NAOJ) Takashi Tsutsumi (CfA) Shigehisa Takakuwa (ASIAA) Hiroyuki Ohta (Fujitsu) Kiyohiko Yanagisawa (FNS)

The Nobeyama 45 m telescope and Nobeyama Millimeter array at Nobeyama Radio Observatory has been operated since 1982. The control system for these telescopes has evolved from a centralized architecture (COSMOS-1) based on IBM compatible mainframe to current hierarchical distributed system (COSMOS-3) running on a distributed environment of WS's and PC's.

COSMOS-3 is functionally divided into three levels. Tools at top level provide various user interfaces for various observing requirements. There are Supervisor, Merger, and Qlook at middle level. Supervisor and Merger control message/data flow between upper level and bottom level. Qlook shows current observing results. At bottom level, there are many Local Controllers to communicate with each device.

Important design concepts of COSMOS-3 are,

Because of these concepts, it is very easy and quick to add new functions or new devices to the system.

P6.9 Remote Observing on the Keck Telescopes

Patrick L. Shopbell (Caltech) Robert Kibrick (UCO/Lick Observatory)

We present a summary of ongoing efforts to use the Keck telescopes remotely from the U.S. mainland. This work has been spearheaded by one of us (RK) at UC Santa Cruz, but is now expanding to include remote sites at Caltech and UC San Diego. Additional sites are planned for the future. In this paper we describe the remote observing architecture, including network reliability issues, data replication methods, and interface aspects, such as videoconferencing. We provide quantitative and qualitative analyses of the Caltech remote observing runs thus far, from which we derive a number of lessons and suggestions for improving remote observing with large telescopes.

P6.10 Chandra Monitoring, Trends, and Response

Scott J. Wolk, Bradley Spitzbart, Takashi Isobe

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched in July, 1999 and has yielded extraordinary scientific results. Monitoring and Trends Analysis (M&TA) system has proven to be a valuable resource. With three years worth of on-orbit data, we have available a vast array of both telescope diagnostic information and analysis of scientific data to access Observatory performance. The primary goal of M&TA is to provide tools for effective decision making leading to the most efficient production of quality science output from the Observatory. M&TA analyzes the most crucial parameters in realtime through C++ tools linked to perl scripts that provide e-mail and pager alerts in the case of limit violations or unexpected spacecraft states. In addition, the telemetry stream is formatted for easy access through a web browser or wireless device. More comprehensive monitoring alerts and trending plots are generated on daily and mission length timelines.

The system utilizes input from the raw telemetry stream, telemetry dumps, processed science products and the archival databases. Output is given in the form of e-mail and/or pager alerts when necessary. Long term monitoring and trending is presented on the world wide web, and all data are archived in SQL and RDB databases. This variety allows for the easy creation of custom studies, showing, for instance, the relation between space weather and co-dependent current rates or charge transfer inefficiency degradation as a function of radiation fluence. This work is supported by NASA contract NAS8-39073.

P6.11 The SCUBA2 Data Acquisition System

Xiaofeng Gao, Dennis Kelly, Michael MacIntosh, William Duncan, Trevor Hodson, Damian Audley, Wayne Holland, (UK ATC)

SCUBA2 is a Second generation sub-millimeter imager for the JCMT currently being designed by a consortium led by the UK ATC. We describe the SCUBA2 data acquisition system, which consists of multiplexed digitization controlled by FPGAs connected by optical fiber to a network of PCs running RTLinux.

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