An off-the-shelf autoguider for McDonald Observatory

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Astronomical Observatories, Automatic Control, Guidance Sensors, Telescopes, Algorithms, Astronomical Photometry, Charge Coupled Devices, Computer Programs, Hardware

Scientific paper

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.

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