User's Guide to the Prime Focus Camera

Table of Contents

Introduction
Description
Hardware Overview
Software Overview
Detector Characteristics
Plate Scale and FOV
Filters
Count Rates
PFCam User Interfaces
Motor Control GUI
CCD Interface
Eventsounds
Observing with PFCam
Starting the Software
Observing Hints
Illustrations
3-D representation
2-D representation
CCD diagrams
PFCam layout
Mt. Hamilton Homepage

Software Overview

User Interfaces

PFCam is controlled by a number of programs running in concert. The observer interacts with the instrument via two user interfaces. Each is described in detail under PFCam User Interfaces. Their functions are outlined in the following table:

Motor Control GUI CCD Interface
  • guider filters
  • science filters
  • science CCD focus
  • guider E-W scanning
  • telescope focus
  • ADC's
  • flat-field lamps
    		•
  • CCD parameters
  • exposures

    • Two additional programs are of interest to the observer: eventsounds and guidercopy. Though not strictly instrument control, and not essential to the operation of PFCam, eventsounds and guidercopy are useful observing aids. Each is described in another section of this manual.

    Component Distribution

    From the user's perspective, all the PFCam software runs on on the host gouda.ucolick.org, but in fact, most of the programs are distributed across the two hosts shard and pfcampc. Eventsounds (responsible for the bells, beeps, and squawks signaling exposure events) is run on gouda for hardware reasons. The following table shows the distribution of all PFCam's software components.

    Summary of PFCam software distribution
    program host UI function
    pfcamdispatch shard no Governs communication between rest of software
    pfcam2 shard no Modern wrapper for pfcamdispatch
    pfcam_mon shard no Guider X stage position monitor
    adctrack shard no Computes position of ADCs
    motor control GUI shard yes GUI control of PFCam and top end motors
    mosdispatch shard no Governs communication with Top End motors
    pftop shard no Top-End keyword service
    pfcamstart pfcampc yes PFCam data taker
    pgEvent2Music pfcampc no Monitor program for exposure events
    pfcam_kwd2db pfcampc no Transfers motor information to FITS headers
    eventsounds gouda yes Generate sounds for exposure events

    Support Astronomers (sa@ucolick.org)
    Last modified: Sat May 19 07:26:51 PDT 2012