ASTROS - A TELESCOPE CONTROL SYSTEM FOR A SMALL RADIO TELESCOPE

  • HANDA T. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo) ;
  • HASEGAWA T. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo) ;
  • MORINO J. I. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo) ;
  • OKA T. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) ;
  • SATO K. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo) ;
  • SORAI K. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo) ;
  • SETA M. (Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo, Physics Institute, University of Cologne) ;
  • HAYASHI M. (National Astronomical Observatory) ;
  • SAKAMOTO S. (Nobeyama Radio Observatory)
  • Published : 1996.12.01

Abstract

We developed a telescope control system called ASTROS for the VST1 and VST2, which are specially designed radio telescopes to make a survey and have a 60-cm main dish. ASTROS is designed on the distributed intelligence concept and structurized programming. The hardware of the system is composed of several intelligent devices connected with de facto standard interfaces and main control unit is PC. The program is coded in the C language and its structure is object oriented in order to make easy to replace the component devices. ASTROS is now running on two twin telescopes, VST1 and VST2. VST1 is installed at Nobeyama in Japan and VST2 is installed at La Silla in Chile. They are making a galactic plane survey in CO (J=2-1) with 9 arcmin beam semi-automatically.

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