The Blanco Telescope TCS upgrade

German Schumacher; Eduardo Mondaca; Michael Warner; Manuel Martinez; Omar Estay; Timothy M. C. Abbott

doi:10.1117/12.857986

19 July 2010 The Blanco Telescope TCS upgrade

German Schumacher, Eduardo Mondaca, Michael Warner, Manuel Martinez, Omar Estay, Timothy M. C. Abbott

Proceedings Volume 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy; 77402H (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857986
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Blanco 4-meter telescope has been in operation for over 30 years and is now subject to an extensive upgrade of its control system, both of the hardware and software aspects. The motivation for the upgrade, besides the normal replacement of obsolete components, is the preparation of the telescope for the installation of the DECAM instrument, which makes greater operational demands than can't be met by the current system. The architecture of the new system is in line with the designs proposed for modern telescopes like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and its implementation utilizes similar technologies as proposed for that project. In this paper we present a detailed description of the upgraded system, including tape encoders, control algorithms, the use of trajectories to optimize motions, communications middleware, and its performance as a whole.

Citation Download Citation

German Schumacher, Eduardo Mondaca, Michael Warner, Manuel Martinez, Omar Estay, and Timothy M. C. Abbott "The Blanco Telescope TCS upgrade", Proc. SPIE 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy, 77402H (19 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857986

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