IRTF TCS3 - posted before the 10Dec telecom

Info about IRTF Servo & PMAC

T3-3001-Servo_Tuning_and_PMAC_conf.pdf - Detail on how IRTF uses PMAC.

servo_simple.pdf  - Simple Servo System Overview.

T3-3000_Telescope_Servo_Overview.pdf  - More detailed Servo Overview.


Engineering Screens

Very valuable for tuning, and making sure the software (
VTCS, RTCS and PMAC) is correct.

Real time plot & text info of PMAC display in real time.

eng_graphs.png  -  tcs3 realtime engineering graphs.

eng_pmac.png  - PMAC Engineering screen.

Operators Screen

If you want to see what that operator uses.

 operator_view.png  - Basic operator view of tcs3.

Stuff posted after the 10Dec Telecom.

1. IRTF guide info.

   IRTF Open loop tracking: typical drift is 0.2 to 0.5 AS/minute.

   Here's an example (100 image taken over 340 seconds). The star centroids are plotted:

  X.png  - HA (4.50 AS in 341 sec), rate is 0.0132 as/s.
  Y.png  - DEC (.32 AS in 341 sec), rate is 0.0009 as/s

   Our optical guiders do simple centroid and correction every 5 to 15 seconds.
   typical correctionare are 0.1 to 0.3 AS.
   Tele Operator might adjust rates (Some TO do not).

   Guiding should correct the slope in the above picture (0.013 as/s). Short term
   error of 0.5 as or less should be handle by another system, or this isn't
	really a pmac tracking issue.

   What is PANSTAR open look tracking look like (Image centroid at 1Hz over 5 minutes)?
   Doesn't panstars do on CCD drift correction. Can Camera handle 1-2 arcsecond errors?
   Why not do this, then offset tcs every 5 seconds or so?

2. It would be good to see VTCS, PMAC dpos, PMAC apos over time to see vtcs, pmac, 
   and servo interaction. The PMAC's dpos should follow the VTCS very closely,
	to within a encoder count or so.

3. Tried doing 1 AS offset & 0.5 AS offset using IRTF TCS3 system.
   See below
  0.5as_1hz_x5.png  - 0.5 AS offsets at 1HZ.
  1as_1hz_x5.png  - 1.0 AS offsets at 1HZ.

  The IRTF can handle > 0.5 AS corrections at 1 Hz

  PAN STAR need to show to how fast small correction are handled by TCS
  to see how fast they should drive their guider.