TCS3 - Telescope Control System 3 NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility(IRTF), Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii

IRTF Mirror Motion Test Procedure

Test Preparation

   1. Check that load cells and dial indicators are reading out
      a. Open an xterm as tcs3 in Stefan (ssh tcs3@stefan)
      b. cd to /home/tcs3/src/mirrorpos
            The mmtest program uses these scripts to get the data from the mirror position sensor, 
            and load cell. You can run them on the command line to see if they are working, ie: 
            
            /home/tcs3/src/mirrorpos/get_mirrorpos.tcl
            OK 0.00040 0.00200 0.00015 0.00140 0.00045

            /home/tcs3/src/mirrorpos/loadcellio.tcl digimim 2010
            OK 000540.

            /home/tcs3/src/mirrorpos/loadcellio.tcl digimim 2011
            OK 000665.

            /home/tcs3/src/mirrorpos/loadcellio.tcl digimim 2012
            OK 000728.
            
      c. Sensor locations
         i. Mirror position Gauges
            1.	A or 1: West top of mirror and is called West Axial (top)
            2.	B or 2: West side of mirror and is called West Radial(side)
            3.	C or 3: North side of mirror and is called North Radial(side)
            4.	D or 4: North top of mirror and is called North Axial
            5.	E or 5: South top of mirror and is called South Axial
            6.	Electronics for gauges are located in the NW coolrack
         ii. Load Cells
            1.	Digimim 2010 – Bottom of mirror, NW
            2.	Digimim 2011 – Bottom of mirror, NE
            3.	Digimim 2012 – Bottom of mirror, S
            4.	Electronics for load cells located in the SW coolrack and on the S side of the mirror cell

   2.	In the machinery room, OPEN the valve for “Telescope Air”.  
   3.	Stow platform, make sure telescope is safe to move 
   4.	Use MP mode to slew the telescope to zenith and turn ON Mirror support from MMC2
   5.	Move the telescope from zenith to ~4h east or west to 'loosen' mirror in mercury ring,
      then go back to zenith.
   6.	Move the telescope to ~-30 south, then back to zenith.

Running the mmtest program

   1.	Open an xterm as tcs3 in Stefan (ssh tcs3@stefan)
   2.	cd to /home/tcs3/public_html/others/mirrorpos
   3.	Run mmtest
      a. Follow the Move Position instructions provided by the program.
         i. Hint: You can copy and paste the 'MP ha dec' command given by the program 
            into the MCC's command line to execute the telescope move, rather than typing 
            the individual HA and Dec values at the MP screen.
     
         Command is: MP hh:mm:ss dd:mm:ss  

      b. Don't move beyond the telescope limit, if the position is beyond the limit you 
         can ignore the move and just record the reading at the present position.
      c. Skip (2 positions), press ENTER at the prompt for the following positions
         i.	00:00:00.0, 79:49:34.0
         ii.	00:00:00.0, 64:49:34.0 (already at this position)
         iii.	When slewing to the north, the program says to slew from +65 to +80 declination, 
               which we cannot do.  Just hit enter to skip these steps.  It'll next say to slew 
               to +65 declination, but the telescope should already be there.  So hit enter 
               to skip this again, and do the next slew to +50 declination.  
      d. It takes about 45 minutes to collect the data.
   4.	When the program is finished click below to find your data file:

      ./datafiles
 
   Files are named using a mmtYYMMDD.HHMM format
   
   5.	At Zenith, turn OFF Mirror support from MCC2
   6.	In the machinery room, CLOSE the valve for “Telescope Air”.

Notes

The file format for the output data file is:
      column     Data
        1        Telescope Azimuth, degrees.
        2        Telescope Elevation, degrees.
        3        Hour Angle, hours.
        4        Declination, degrees.
        5        Mirror Position sensor #1, West Axial(top), inches.
        6        Mirror Position sensor #2, West Radial(side), inches.
        7        Mirror Position sensor #3, North Radial(side), inches.
        8        Mirror Position sensor #4, North Axial(top), inches.
        9        Mirror Position sensor #5, South Axial(top), inches.
       10        LoadcellNW #1, lbs. (digimin 2010)
       11        LoadcellNE #2, lbs. (digimin 2011)
       12        LoadcellS  #3, lbs. (digimin 2012)

As of June 2010, the mirror postion data has been recorded by the iqup system every 2 min. or so.
Go to the IQUP getData site to retrieve the data:IQUP Home Page

To stop the program at any time, press Ctrl-C

The program will prompt you for optional values for elevation steps, 
decrement values, etc., but you can leave these blank and hit enter 
to use the default values. 

Default values:
   -Number of elevation steps: Number of positions between zenith and end.
   Default is 4, number must be between 0 and 20.
      
   -Elevation decrement value: How far to change elevation between moves. 
   Must be in radians. Default is 15, number must be between -1 and 45.
           
   Note: The previous two parameters apply to the entire sky. If too many steps
   are chosen and/or too large an elevation decrement is used, you will likely 
   run into telescope limits, especially towards the north. 
      
   -Az offset value: Azimuth offset, radians. Default is 0, must between -90 and 90. 
      
   -Mirror sensor sensitivity: Margin of error (in inches) between the 2 sensor 
   readings taken at each telescope position. Default is 0.001,
   number must be between -1 and 1. If both sets of readings differ too much
   then the program will try again.

Archive

   ./docs - some documentation for the mirror position sensors and load cells.

   ././archive/casspc_home_mirror - a copy of /home/mirror from casspc.
      Copied on 2010 June 22.  Prior the June 2010, the mirror position
      serial line was plugged into casspc and the data collection was
      done here.  Also look at /benchmark/mirror for other old data.