acevisit6assessment.docPage 110/07/2018

Assessment of ACE’s Accomplishments During Recent Service Visit, 29 May – 4 June 2003

D. Barnaby

This paper serves as a quick summary of what was and what was not accomplished during the recent visit from Peter Mack, and also lists some implications of the visit.

Accomplished

  1. Winch kick plate removed. This was the 2nd one that became bent, so we removed it. Under normal circumstances, the plate ensures that the cable remains under tension, but in our case the cable is under tension by default. Hopefully, we won’t nee it.
  2. New Drop-out cable strung. The old cable was showing wear and was ready to be replaced
  3. TCC rebuilt with new motherboard and XP. Peter installed and used Remote Administrator instead of PCAnywhere. Many things have to yet be installed, including Norton Antivirus. ACE did not provide an accelerated graphics card, so we are operating without one. The hard drive is reorganized so that user accounts are now under C:\Documents and Settings. ACEOPS occupies all of D:\, and downloads of all kinds get put on E:\. The TCC no longer is SCSI capable. In order to install XP, we had to exchange the CD-drive in TCC with the DVD-drive in ICC. The ICC seems t have survived the operation.
  4. New PC58 cable installed. The cable known as Card 1 has been replaced with a new cable with unstripped screws. The old cable is in my office for a spare, since it still functional (although hard to attach).
  5. The new RA encoder was attached, and the new RA encoder crate mounted. The RA encoder was verified to work. See attached photos.
  6. Installed an up-to-date version of ACEOPS. We are now working with a baseline of June 2003. This version contains an initial release of a pointing model. The pointing model application is largely untested, and its GUIs (in fact, the entire version of ACEOPS) suggest features that in fact do not exist, yet. However, a new feature is that XP’s task manager DOES appear to kill ACEOPS if it crashes.
  7. Collected about 20% of a pointing model database.
  8. We tightened loose coupling screws on the mirror petals and on the dec encoder. These systems work slightly better, now, and these screws should be added to an annual maintenance list.
  9. Chased 2 rat snakes out of observatory. It took 2 days to get them to leave. I had to capture 1 with my (gloved) hand in order to get it out. See attached photo

Things left to do

  1. Necessary Repairs
  2. Fix/reinstall SmartDome. Peter came prepared to upgrade Smart Dome, because our version was so old, it was unfixable (we disconnected it last autumn). This upgrade included new firmware and a new inverter IC so that SmartDome really does control the dome, which is to say that ACEOPS no longer directly controls the dome. Peter was unable to make it work, for the EPROM he brought appeared to be blown. Hence, he took the SmartDome crate with him. The means that all remote observing is cancelled, since we cannot control the dome or the video cameras (and probably other things) until the crate is returned. I am hopeful we will get the crate back this month, but Peter’s estimates have been so unreliable in the past (the RA encoder, for example) that I can no longer trust his time estimates.
  3. Fix/reinstall handpaddle. A true piece of bad luck was that our hand paddle South switch became stuck in the closed position. Peter took that with him for repairs. We are still waiting to get it back. Though important, this will not seriously impair our operation.
  4. Software/Computers
  5. Kill MSN messenger on ICC and TCC.
  6. Find and report bugs in ACEOPS. I have already found 3, which include I) ACEOPS locking up if the observer requests that the telescope move into the keep-out zone; II) object catalogs are sorted imperfectly when ordered by RA or any other parameter; and III) the FF tools ALWAYS opens the mirror petals. Also, there are a host of undocumented features, which ACE insists are not bugs but which are likely to ruin any nights observing. So, observers must prepare themselves for the worse and report unexpected consequences immediately to the astronomer on call.
  7. Install NAV on TCC. Maybe install PCAnywhere (see 3a below).
  8. Properly install observers log and improve it. There are many files that fit this category. Peter, of course, did not care about our home-grown files, so the observers log etc will have to be retrieved, installed, backed up, write protected, etc.
  9. Install backplate on TCC. ACE is retrofitting new motherboards into old ruggedized enclosures, so this necessitates installation of a new backplate for the enclosures. Of course, Peter forgot to bring one with him, so yours truly will have to install it. Let’s just hope he makes it right the first time.
  10. Operations
  11. Try running with radmin. Radmin is the short name for Remote Administrator. ACE has abandoned PCAnywhere. I tried radmin, and I am slightly more impressed with it than I used to be. It should work well on bellops and TCC, but requires extensive testing on ICC. I will train observers to run TCC using radmin in the near-term as an experiment.
  12. Make GPS card run. Peter did not know how to install the GPS card in the new motherboard, so currently that does not work. Observers will have to set the time by hand until we get this fixed. The pointing model’s success depends crucially on knowing the correct time.
  13. Implement new LSM procedure. Peter is confident that the PC58 cards will no longer be burned in lightning storms, and therefore requests that we discontinue disconnecting them prior to electrical storms. We may disconnect the DIO24 cards, of which there are now 2. However, DIO24-2 now services the RA encoder, and the RA encoder crate is powered. Therefore, the crate should be depowered prior to disconnecting the DIO24-2 cable. This is done by disconnecting the VDC-Out connector from the back of Main Crate. I fear that all this is ACE lore. For instance, it was Peter’s instruction that we disconnect the all the cards in the first place, since we were losing 2 per summer. I predict that we will lose at least one computer board this summer, which will not be horrible since we have own spares. If we do lose a card, I will insist we return to disconnecting the PC58 cards. Likewise, I believe that disconnecting the DC volts to the RA Crate prior to disconnecting the DIO24-2 is like saying a computer should be off before attaching something to a comm port; in other words, a mistake. Without better information, however, it is better to comply.
  14. Figure way to keep loom from snagging the RA encoder. The RA encoder extends from the mount considerably farther than old encoders, and we noticed that the loom can be caught on the encoder end. Perhaps a bungy cord can be used for this.
  15. Implement strain relief for cass end cable. We discovered that the cable connecting the focuser to the patch panel was miswired (7 was wired as 9). We fixed this, but the cable still appears to show an intermittent problem, and so I will have to replace it. In addition, that cable appeared to be coming apart, thanks perhaps to strain. I will have to come up with some strain relief.
  16. Pointing model completion. The new version of ACEOPS really assumes a pointing model, and Peter really discourages the use of Encoder Reset from now on. Of course, Encoder Reset has become so fundamental to our operating procedure, all observers will require reeducation to overcome the tendency to use it. We simply have to finish a crude (read, sufficiently complete) pointing model before we can resume normal observing operations. The pointing model depends on a database of up to 2000 positions distributed across the sky. This will take a VERY long time to collect, and it is not clear how many we need at the start of operations. I suggest that we collect about 200 for our crude model. This means about 17 data points at each of 12 different declinations, which are –30,-20,-10,0,10,20,30,40,50,60,70, and 80. We are about 60% done, now, and one more clear night should see us finish the crude model. Note that this model will NOT solve our pointing problems, but hopefully it will diminish them. Then, we will have to develop a substitute for resetting encoders. A great unknown here is how soon will Peter will update the pointing model application and nullify the pointing model data we have collected. I guarantee that will happen, but I don’t know how soon.
  17. Implement Horizon Map. The new ACEOPS comes with a tool to produce a horizon map. I was not trained to implement this (of course), and am still awaiting instruction. I continue to ask for this, but as usual Peter gives the excuse “I cannot do it now because I have to visit another observatory today”. In other words, we are low priority customer. Probably, the way to solve this is to have Peter logon some night when we are observing on site.
  18. Implement PEC. With the new encoder, we can return to the notion of periodic error correction. I still have learn how to do this, but so will Peter, who has never done it with an absolute encoder. Peter has offered to logon and help with this. Since we have not had much success with PEC, I forecast we will still find that guiding is required, but PEC could be quite useful in the 1-minute integration regime.
  19. Tracking. In a future release of ACEOPS, the pointing data will be used to correct the tracking rate. This, however, will require a much more dense grid of data points than the crude model will provide. Thus, improved tracking may require another long campaign to gather pointing data.
  20. Implement scripting. The latest version of ACEOPS includes a scripting tool. It is very limited, but its biggest drawback is that the camera and telescope must be controlled by the same PC. Peter promises to upgrade that, but won’t promise when he’ll upgrade it. Meanwhile, ACEOPS will work with planetarium program called Megastar. Click on an object in Megastar, and the telescope slews to those coordinates. This is a feature that we should attempt to implement! In addition, the same algorithm could be used to write an image taking script that would nod the telescope to survey a region of the sky, as XSP project envisions. I’d like to try this feature, but not until other operational aspects are solved.
  21. Maintenance
  22. Clean and Lubricate drive boxes. This is required yearly, and we were too busy to do this while Peter was here.
  23. Rerun RA encoder cable. Peter ran it under the floor in a sloppy fashion. It must be rerun.

Things to buy

The following costs are only estimates.

  1. Estimate for a larger hole in the guider-box mirror. Peter and I examined images I took with the Ap6, and agreed that there appears to be vignetting. I asked for an estimate for a mirror with the central-hole radius increased by 20%.
  2. Megastar Planetarium Program, $129.
  3. USB-2 external harddrive to act as backup to TCC, $150.
  4. Retrospect Image Backup Software, $50.
  5. Clover Video Camera to replace degrading camera, $150.
  6. License for Remote Administrator, $35.
  7. AGP 4x card for TCC, $100.

Bugs left to fix in ACEOPS

Change with Filter must be disabled.

Keep out zone error box locks display.

Catalogs not sorted correctly according to any parameter.

FF dialog always opens mirror petals.

Figure 1 RA Encoder and Crate

Figure 2 Rat Snake