Off-the-shelf autoguider for McDonald Observatory

Timothy M. C. Abbott

doi:10.1117/12.19141

1 July 1990 Off-the-shelf autoguider for McDonald Observatory

Timothy M. C. Abbott

Proceedings Volume 1235, Instrumentation in Astronomy VII; (1990) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.19141
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation for the 21st Century, 1990, Tucson, AZ, United States

Abstract

A telescope autoguider constructed of unmodified commercially available components for use with the 2.1-m focal reducer at McDonald Observatory is described. The system comprises a thermoelectrically cooled CCD camera with format 384 x 576 pixels, pixel size 23 microns square, readout noise 25 electrons/pixel, and dark current 10 electrons/sec pixel at -35 C; a 50-mm camera lens giving resolution about 1 arcsec/pixel; an IEEE-488 data bus; a MicroVAX 3200 computer workstation; and a serial-to-parallel converter permitting the computer to address the telescope drive system via four trail-rate controls. Also discussed are the top-down C-language programming approach, the data representation, the autoguiding and search algorithms, and ongoing work on the telescope control algorithm. It is suggested that the present system is versatile enough to be applicable to many similar telescopes.

Citation Download Citation

Timothy M. C. Abbott "Off-the-shelf autoguider for McDonald Observatory", Proc. SPIE 1235, Instrumentation in Astronomy VII, (1 July 1990); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.19141

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