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Camera Control for Photometrics Star I CCD runing on GNU/Linux

(c) Copyright 2005 Federico Bareilles <fede@iar.unlp.edu.ar>, Instituto Argentino de Radio Astronomia (IAR).

This program is free software that you can redistribute and/or modify under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Camera Control:

Photometrics Star I is a CCD camera head with own proprietary controller. The controller can be manage from a host computer via IEEE-488 (GPIB) interface.

The software consist of camera control daemon (it run on host computer connected to camera controller via GPIB (IEEE-488) interface), and a command line client interface running on any other computer (or the same).

Actually only one client interface exists, it's implement for astronomical use specifically, but is useful in other application well (I think).

Server and Client software only tested under GNU/Linux.

The next graphics show schematically how all parts of software work:

Prerequisites for client:

Do you need the following additional software:

NOVAS-C : The Naval Observatory Vector Astrometry Subroutines.
The primary site: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/software/novas/novas_c/novas-c201.tar.Z , but need the following patch: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/NOVAS/novas-patch-c201p0 ,
or simply download the following packet: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/NOVAS/libnovas-c201p0.tgz , and:

 
tar xzvf libnovas-c201p0.tgz
cd libnovas
make_source
cd novas-c201p0
make 
make install 

libiarcontrol : IAR Control Library is an own interprocess communication bus, download last release at: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/libiar/ .

cfitsio : An Interface to FITS Format Files for C Programmers, Goddard Space Flight Center.
Download it from: http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/fitsio or ftp://legacy.gsfc.nasa.gov/software/fitsio/c

XPA : X Public Access is a mechanism to allow external processes to access and control its data, GUI functions, and algorithms (for ds9 communication).
download it at: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/xpa/

SAOImage DS9 : An astronomical imaging and data visualization application.
Look hear: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/index.html

Prerequisites for server:

libiarcontrol : IAR Control Library is own interprocess communication bus, download last release at: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/libiar/ .

linux-gpib : The Linux GPIB Package
do you need GPIB card well configured: http://linux-gpib.sourceforge.net/ .

Download Star I:

Find last release at: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/star_i/
and shared tar files at: http://www.iar.unlp.edu.ar/~fede/pub/star_i/star_i-share.tar.gz

Next untar bot in the same directory.

Please, send me any comments if you test this software.

Implemented commands on client:

 
time                  Set date & time on camera controller.
temp                  Get current CCD temperature.
etime [time]           Get/Set exposure time (sec).
treg [on|off]         Get/Set teperature regulator.
expose [etime]        Exposure (F5).
dark [etime]          Dark integration.
bias                  Bias integration.
get {filename[.fits]} Get current image from the camera controller.
display {filename[.fits]}
                      Display filename.fits image.
note {filename[.fits] note text}
                      Put note in header of filename.fits.
focus                 100x100 pixel focus integration.
shade                  Test video display memory.
clear                 Clear video display memory.
gain [1|4]            Get/Set system gain factor.
showp [&]             Show current position (HA, Dist. Pol.). &: run in xterm.
conf                  Edit current configuration file.
pal [sat] [[min] max] Chage current video palette (none:reset, sat: saturation;
                      F6|F9: toggle which last palette..
? [cmd]               Synonym for `help'.
q                     Quit :-). 
The tape commands are not implemented yet, and there are no plans to include them in TODO.

Configuration:

At the moment only client application need configuration:

File Description
/etc/stari/client.conf Information about server and port:
 
SERVER = 127.0.0.1
PORT = 3030 
/etc/stari/stari.conf: Site and Instrument information.
See example.
/etc/stari/user_stari.conf: Skell for user configuration.
See example.


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Federico Bareilles: fede@iar.unlp.edu.ar [20/04/2016]