Reusing the VLT control system on the VISTA Telescope

D. L. Terrett; Malcolm Stewart

doi:10.1117/12.856367

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19 July 2010 Reusing the VLT control system on the VISTA Telescope

D. L. Terrett, Malcolm Stewart

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Proceedings Volume 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy; 77400W (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856367
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Once it was decided that the VISTA infra-red survey telescope would be built on Paranal and operated by ESO it was clear that there would be many long term advantages in basing the control system on that of the VLTs. Benefits over developing a new system such as lower development costs or disadvantages such as constraints on the design were not the most important factors in deciding how to implement the TCS, but now that the telescope is complete the pros and cons of re-using an existing system can be evaluated. This paper reviews the lessons learned during construction and commissioning and attempts to show where reusing an existing system was a help and where it was a hindrance. It highlights those things that could have been done differently to better exploit the fact the we were using a system that was already proven to work and where, with hindsight, we would have been better to re-implement components from scratch rather than modifying an existing one.

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D. L. Terrett and Malcolm Stewart "Reusing the VLT control system on the VISTA Telescope", Proc. SPIE 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy, 77400W (19 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.856367

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