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howto:bootes:bootes_1

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BOOTES - 1

Technical issues regarding our installations at BOOTES-1 in El Arenosillo.

Our installations include five imaging systems in total: BOOTES-1A, BOOTES-1B, BOOTES-1ASM, External webcam and internal webcam watching BOOTES-1B. We have two domes, first, older and recently reconstructed covers B-1A and B-1ASM. The newer and larger dome hosts BOOTES-1B and it's webcam.

Bootes-1B

The mount needs to be restarted ocassionally. Primary symptom is the mount beeping, but that cannot be heard over the webcam. Typically it is recognized by Motor stil slewing but command needs it stopped message in RTS2 log.

Solution is rather straightforward – power cycling the mount. To achieve this on distance, one should typically watch the webcam (http://b1-axis-in/ within a browser running via X-windows from arae.iaa.es), while issuing the command dome1.teloff in the rts2-mon runnin from iam1b. The mount LED should indicate that the mount is off. Then dome1.telon should start the mount. Check if it parks automatically, and if it does not, do it manually.

NOTE: The switch is commom with the Bootes-1A Alta CCD, which will be also power cycled if you do this. Therefore, you should also consider stopping the alta driver before and restarting it after the former action.

Bootes-1A

The camera driver has a bug, which causes it to hang from time to time. The following sequence should bring it back.

  1. log in to vader
  2. killall rts2-camd-alta
  3. ssh iam1b
  4. rts2-mon
  5. dome1.teloff
  6. wait few seconds
  7. dome1.telon
  8. quit the monitor, get back to vader, wait ~10seconds so that the camera comes up
  9. /etc/init.d/rts2 start
  10. check in rts2-mon if the camera is Okay.

NOTE: as this switch is common with Bootes-1B mount, you should check the mount as well. If observing, consider paring the mount in advance to avoid possible problems while the mount is being reset.

Weather & dome control

These devices are generally common to all involved systems, they are all connected to a single PC (iam1a), which replaced the former DCM, via serial ports (RS232).

FORDOSTROJ

The PC-to-dome interfaces are two (for each dome separate) serial boards designed for us by Martin Nekola in Ondrejov. They are both connected to iam1a. The board controlling (older, reconstructed, western) Bootes1A dome, is connected to /dev/ttyS0, while the Bootes1B board is on /dev/ttyS4. There is a set of scripts allowing simple actions be taken on the boards in iam1a:/home/standa/fordostroj/ (Read them before trying. You are indeed opening & closing the dome, it may rain!). Under normal circumstances, RTS2 has two separate custom drivers rts2-dome-bootes1 an rts2-dome-bootes1a to be watching on them.

RAIN SENSORS

There are two Eigenbrodt IRSS 88 precipitation detectors, connected separately to the dome control inlets (fordostoj). The northern detector is connected only to Bootes-1B inlet (no. 5, 0x10), while the southern one is connected to both units in parallel (at B-1A it is inlet no.1, i.e. 0x01, at B-1B it is no.6, i.e. 0x20).

These detectors are supposed to protect us as the last instance rain protection, therefore are wired as low in the hardware as possible. In future, we should even consider the blocking (closing) the dome at hardware layer - the new state machine being used at Bootes-1A is clearly able to accept such an inlet.

The northern (nearer to the domes) sensor seems to have a malfunctioning DEU (drop evaluation unit), although the drops (well, screwdriver strikes) get detected well at the frame, the DEU does not react. The unit should be revised soon.

CLOUDMETER

Provides sky transparency measures through by providing the radiative temperature of the sky. It is connected to iam1a:/dev/ttyS6.

DAVIS WEATHER STATION

Wireless weather station capable of providing precipitation sums in mm/m2, wind speed, temperature and humidity. Connected to iam1a:/dev/ttyS1.

WEBCAM

The webcam may be considered another weather measuring instrument. It is not being used that way, but running astrometry upon the received image does not seem that problematic. In any case, the archive of images taken every second is in iam1a:/home/axis/.

PiXY

The discharge detector PIXY is supposed to provide additional security against lightnings, it's output is being logged, but currently is not actively used. It is connected to iam1a:/dev/ttyS5

howto/bootes/bootes_1.1220116226.txt.gz · Last modified: 2008/09/06 00:00 (external edit)