( PostScript File also availible )

Program MOVE controls telescope and autoguider operations and provides limited access to control and status information by other computers via an RS232 port. The software is MS-DOS FORTRAN/ASSEMBLER run on a PC clone.

Table of Contents

1. All entries may be given in upper or lower case. Backspace (delete) may be used to delete typed characters. CTRL-U may be used to delete an entire line. ESC can be used at any time to abort any command. The only exception to this rule is that the ESC abort is disabled in all maintenance commands (see below for list).
   
   

2. Some MOVE commands (and many guider commands) use the numeric keypad. In MOVE, the keyboard is set up such that the four arrow keys will give the same result as the numeric keypad keys which have arrows on them. That is, the numeric 8 key is identical to the up arrow key. However, the six other numeric keys which have secondary marks (eg, the keypad 9 key is marked Page Up) are not identical in function to the six corresponding keys on the keyboard. Thus keypad 9 is different from the Page Up key even though it is marked Page Up.
   
   

3. Page Up toggles between guider and the default telescope display screens if autoguider or video guiding is enabled. All guider commands consist of three letters beginning with a G. Autoguider stages and focus motions can be controlled by the number pad arrow keys.
   
   

4. Entry of coordinates: Almost any reasonable form of entry will be accepted. When entering coordinates, a comma or a blank may be used to separate the hours (or degrees), minutes, and seconds. Leading zeroes or zero terms may be omitted. Thus, 3,0,3.123; 03,00,03.123; 3,,3.123; or 3 0 3.123 will all be accepted correctly. The parser also has no difficulty with the -0 declination problem. For example, -,,.1 or -00,00,0.100 will be accepted correctly. The program also accepts fractional minutes. Thus, -01,10.123 or 10 20.1 are also valid inputs. Note that one may request that the display be in fractional minutes (see the FN command, below). If an error is detected in the input, the program will ask for the value to be re-entered. Some commands ask that a negative RA be entered to terminate a sequence. For those commands, entering a single minus sign is sufficient.
   
   

5. Entry of times: Times follow the same rules as coordinates.
   
   

6. Entry of dates. Dates are entered in the form of 09-OCT-91. The month is not case sensitive and the leading zero on single digit days is not required. Only a two digit year will be accepted.
   
   

7. RA and DEC display: Mean coordinates, the default display, are those which have been corrected to the coordinates which would be found in a star catalog. Mean telescope positions account for all the effects of aberration, nutation, refraction, and all mechanical problems associated with the telescope. Mean coordinates can be displayed as those of the equinox of date, or can be precessed to any desired date.
   
   

8. Equinoxes: The MOVE program supports separate display and input equinoxes. There are two possible display equinoxes - that of date and that of some other, alternate equinox (which can be provided by the user - it is 2000.0 at startup). Input equinoxes can come in many forms: coordinates are entered in the keyboard equinox, positions read from an observing list file can be of any equinox, positions read from the PPM catalog are of equinox 2000.0, ephemerides can be any equinox. If a move is requested to a position which is not given in the current display equinox, the position is precessed to the current display equinox and both the initial coordinates (as obtained by the program from the user, a file, an ephemeris, or from a catalog) and the final, precessed coordinates (as will match with the display when the move is completed) are shown on the screen.
   
   

9. Moving the telescope: The telescope can be moved by either keyboard commands or by the hand paddle. Any keyboard commanded move must be confirmed by the user before the telescope actually begins to move. The net distance for any move is always reported, and the user must give confirmation before the move will be attempted. A move is aborted if the telescope enters the horizon limit region, if the user presses any direction paddle button while the telescope is moving (N, S, E, or W) or if any key is typed on the keyboard.
   
   

10. Any command which takes a single argument can be entered with the argument on the same line as the command, separated from it by a space (e.g. NE 1950.0). If the argument is omitted, the program will prompt for it.
    
    

11. Dome following is toggled on and off via the DM command. Dome following checks if the telescope is more than 0.8 of the distance to the position where the ``Warning - Move Dome'' message would come on. If that distance is exceeded, the program moves the dome to a position where tracking will carry the object to the center of the slit in 11 minutes. Dome following is disabled whenever the dome position is not currently on the screen (HP, for example) or when the telescope is being manually slewed. When the telescope is moved from point to point (via a CO or RF command, for example), the final azimuth of the telescope is computed and the dome is moved to a position where tracking will carry the object to the center of the slit in 11 minutes. When the move completes, normal dome following is re-enabled. If the move is aborted, the dome is stopped, but will then move to the position the telescope was left in after the abort when the normal dome following mode resumes.
    
    

12. Limits: There are two limit regions - slow and horizon, both reported on the screen. The slow slew region is entered first. The horizon limit is the final limit. If the telescope enters the slow slew region, a warning beep turns on and a message appears on the console. If you have slewed into the region, the telescope motion continues but at a slower speed (1200 arcsec/sec va 4200 arcsec/sec normally). Tracking and or ephemeris rates stay on. You now have two minutes to hit the limit override button on the console. Once you do this, all behavior will be normal with exception for the slower slew speed. If you do not hit the override button within the allotted time, the electronics will switch on all four paddle button directions (a message will appear on the screen about EW and NS conflicts). Also, the intermittent warning beep will become continuous. While in this state, you cannot use the paddle to move the telescope nor can you do computer-controlled moves. At this point, you must push the limit override to restore normal behavior. If you continue through the slow slew region, you will eventually reach the horizon limit. At this point, a message appears on the console, the continuous warning beep comes on, tracking and/or computer-controlled moves are disabled. At the horizon, you can only move the telescope with the paddle while simultaneously holding down the limit override switch. In addition, only paddle directions which will move the telescope away from the horizon are allowed.

Unless manually turned off, the telescope automatically does coordinate lock at all times. Any commanded point-to-point move to a fixed target (CO, RF, PP, etc) will put the telescope into "sidereal rate'' lock (the current state of the lock is always shown on the display). While in sidereal lock the current display coordinate is held fixed. Since the display coordinate is corrected for flexure, refraction, aberration, and nutation, holding the display coordinate fixed should also hold the star position fixed. Sidereal lock mode is also entered when sidereal tracking is turned on. An alternate lock mode is ``track rate'' lock. Executing an EG command (ephemeris go, see below) computes the current rates of the desired object from its ephemeris, moves to the ephemeris point and locks to the derived rate. Lock is turned off when sidereal track is turned off. The state of the lock may be manually set via the CL command (see below). If the paddle is used while locked (in sidereal or rate lock), the lock will be broken while the telescope is moved, and the same lock state resumed on completion of the move. Relative moves (via the RM command, remote commands, or the KM command) are treated the same way as paddle moves during lock. That is, the lock state at the start of the move is resumed at the completion of the move. During guiding with the Lowell Guider, the screen will show that lock is ``Off - Guiding.''

Moving by Object Name

One may move the telescope by object name via the OG (Object Go) command. Catalog objects which are recognized are the Messier catalog (M n); the IC and NGC catalogs (IC n and NGC n); and the HR catalog (HR n; BS n and YBS n are also permitted). For all of these designations, n represents a number. The name is case insensitive and the space is optional (eg Hr1234, HR 1234, NgC1, ngc30, hgc 101 are all valid requests). The program also recognizes the Flamsteed and Bayer designations. The only constraint is that the last three characters of the request be a valid constellation abbreviation. Again, case is ignored. Thus, the following are all valid requests: a sco, asco,ASCO, Alpha Sca, 11 Sco, 11sco, 11SCO, etc. Lastly, the program recognizes a large number of items by their names: all the planets and the Moon, most of the common named stars (Vega, Deneb, Antares, etc) as well as over 300 named stellar and galactic objects (Ring Nebula, Hubble's Variable Nebula, etc). For named objects, the match is word-by-word. It is case insensitive and ignores special characters such as - or '. Thus a request for "h v n" will match both Hubble's Variable Neblua and Hind's Variable Nebula. If more than one object matches, the user is asked to select one. Note that one may search the list by asking for a single letter which will return everything which begins with that letter. As with other commands which take a single argument, one may give the command on one line (eg OG vega or OG 11sco).

Ephemerides

One may enter up to 999 ephemerides (either manually or via data files: see EE command). Each ephemeris can have as many points as needed to adequately define the ephemeris. While in track rate lock, the program recalculates the track rate after each DT where DT is the separation between the entered ephemeris points. Thus for objects whose rates are changing rapidly (Io, for example), one should provide an ephemeris with very short DT (5 minutes for Io).

When requesting an ephemeris (with the EG, EO, or SE commands), you may give the command with no argument (eg, EG) in which case the program will list all the available epherides and ask you to choose one. You can follow the command with an ephemeris number (eg, EG 34) which will request a move to the 34th ephemeris. Or, you can follow the command with an object's name (eg, EG Hale-Bopp). The comparison between the requested name and the name in the ephemeris file is made in upper case, with all blanks removed. If there are multiple matches found, they are reported, and the user is asked to choose one. Any part of the name can match so that EG Bopp will also find Hale-Bopp. If you are requesting a match with a name which is just a number, preceed the name with a # sign. For example, EG #5 will match with 5 Astraea.

If there is only one ephemeris currently entered EG, EO & SE default to EG 1, EO 1, & SE 1, respectively.

Power up

The CPU resides in the computer room; the terminal and keyboard are in the warm room. Turning on power to the telescope powers up the CPU; the terminal is turned on and off manually. When the computer boots in, the computer sets its default directory to C:\USER and begins MOVE. The initialization choices are prompted. Turning power on is only necessary when telescope is to be moved. This switch is to be OFF when lightning is threatening and when closing down.

Program initialization

Five initialization procedures may be required on start up; guider, filter wheel, paddle interrrupt, dome, and coordinate initialization.

1. Guider initialization: The program asks if you will be using no guider (N), the Lowell guider (G), or another RS170 video source for guiding (V). See the Guider document for more details on guider initialization.
   
   

2. Filter wheel initialization: The filter wheel is moved to its index position and is left in filter position 1. If there is a problem with initialization or if the filter wheel is not connected, the filter wheel is designated as ``unavailable'' and commands to it are ignored.
   
   

3. Paddle interrupt initialization: The user is asked to hit a paddle key two or three times and then type a carriage return to continue.
   
   

4. Dome initialization: The program asks that the user move the dome to the right of the encoder sensor switch. At this point you can either move the dome and type carriage return or you may type escape to skip the dome initialization entirely. If you decide to do the initialization at the 42", move the electrical contact to the right of the bus bar and type carriage return; at the 72", move the arrow on the dome to the right of the black bar on the wall and type carriage return. The program moves the dome to the left over the switch and then back to the right. This completes the dome initialization at the 42". However, at the 72", if you intend to use dome following, you must also determine the dome coast distances. Again, at this point, you are asked to type carriage return to continue or escape to skip this step. If you continue, the program moves the telescope left or one second, then right; then left for two seconds, then right; etc. The total number of moves depends on the coast distance determined in the first phase of the initialization, but will be a maximum of five seconds left and then right. Each time the coast initialization is performed, a file containing the parameters is written to F:DOMPAR.DAT (in the Sun /observe/home directory). If dome initialization is skipped, this file is read back and used instead. Note that, at either telescope, if you skip the dome initialization, it may be done later via the ID command.
   
   

5. Coordinate initialization: If the program exited cleanly (via QU) the previous night, the coordinates of the telescope were saved and can be used to restart. The next question asks if you want to use the saved coordinates (by entering a carriage return) or to do a full manual restart (by typing MS and a carriage return). In most cases, just type carriage return. If you do a MS, or if there is no saved file, then you have to do an manual restart. The user is asked if the telescope is in ``stow'' position. The stow position is the position that the home command moves the telescope to - just to the south of the equator switch and just to the east of the meridian switch (with the setting circles on the white marks). If this question is answered Y, the telescope will attempt to find the switches automatically by slewing to the north and then to the west. If both switches are found, the program brings up MOVE. If either switch is missed (the telescope will only move 5 degrees in either axis before deciding that it missed the switch), the program reverts to the manual coordinate initialization mode (which is also entered if the user answers N to the question about stow position). Here the user is asked to manually slew the telescope through the equator from south to north and then through the meridian from east to west. The equator switch is ignored if it is seen while moving from north to south; the meridian switch is ignored if it is seen while moving from west to east. For testing purposes, the user can just press carriage returns instead of slewing through the switches. However, the resulting coordinates will not be correct.

Four information areas are supported on the display screen: telescope position and time, status information, data files, and command input. An alternate display, toggled by the page up key, provides guider information.

1. The first (topmost) area contains telescope position and time information:
   
   

   a) The mean RA and DEC of the current display equinox and that equinox. b) The hour angle of the mean RA and DEC c) The sidereal time. d) The UT or local time. e) The JD (to four significant places after the decimal point). f) The zenith distance of the mean RA and DEC. g) The air mass. h) The location of the dome relative to the telescope. i) The parallactic angle. j) Moon or Sun data (see SM command). The moon display shows the distance of the Moon from the telescope, the phase of the Moon (percent illuminated), and the altitude of the Moon followed by a R if it is rising and a S if it is setting. The Sun display is the same except that the phase is blanked. The entire display is blanked if the object is below -5 degrees altitude.

   
   
   

2. The second area shows the telescope status, dome status, limits and other control status items. This part of the display contains:
   
   

   a) The telescope status which indicates when the telescope is guiding, setting, or slewing, and the direction(s) as well as any motion conflicts. b) Dome status indicates if dome following is on. If so, a message is given when the dome is moving. If dome following is off, then dome warning messages are given on this line if the dome is close to or actually occulting the telescope. The ``close to'' warning comes on when the telescope is within 2 degrees of the edge of the slit. c) Status of the sidereal tracking (on/off; see TR). d) Status of the coordinate lock (coordinate/tracking/off); the current rates in RA (s/hr) and DEC ("/hr); the number of the ephemeris from which the rates were derived. e) If any limits are in effect (slow slew or horizon). f) Telescope focus. This is not yet implemented. g) A warning beep may be enabled or disabled for dome occulting. The status of this flag (on/off) is shown (see BP). h) The status of the remote port (on/off; see RT). i) The position of the filter wheel (see GFW). j) The name of the current object.

   
   
   

3. The third area contains information about data files and star positions entered from the keyboard:
   
   

   a) The keyboard coordinates equinox (default is current display equinox). b) The name of any currently open star coordinates file. If no file is currently open, it is so indicated, and the next two items are not shown. c) The number of entries in the file (if a file is open). d) The ASCII descriptor for the file (if a file is open).

   
   
   

4. The fourth area of the display (on the bottom) scrolls and is the area in which the user provides command input.