Overall software design is to control all components from a main server computer, song1m, located in the main computer room, running Linux. This communicates with the telescope/camera computer, pwi1m, and the dome computer, dome1m, via network communication; this is extendable to additional devices on additional computers. It is largely a client-server model, where the server devices are interfaced over the network through ASCOM/Alpaca.

Devices can also be controlled locally from the computer to which they are attached, as this is useful for lower level functionality, debugging, etc.

A schematic of the software architecture is shown below (click to enlarge).

A full set of Python commands that communicate with all of the component devices is implemented in the aposong.py module in the APOsong repository (github.com/holtzmanjon/APOsong). The communication is implemented (for the most part) with the Alpyca Python interface to Alpaca devices. Given that all of the devices are on the internal APO network, the main control computer, song1m, is located on this network, and remote operation can be done using VNC with an openVPN or tunneling connection. On song1m, the software environment is set up for the song user.

An interactive client can be run from a Python environment. APOsong provides convenience routines to connect to Alpaca devices and provide user-friendly commands to control the telescope, dome, camera etc., but you can also use all regular Python functionality, providing for a powerful environment. Within the APOsong software, interactive image display is enabled using the pyvista display tool and built-in, e.g. for the expose() command, but of course any other Python packages can be used interactively.

To access the command set:

from aposong import *

You can get a quick listing of commands using

commands()

and you can use help(command) or command? to see the docstrings.

This will also provide instantiations of all of the Alpaca devices: Telescope as T, Dome as D, Safetymonitor as S, Cameras as C[], Switches as SW[], Focussers as F[].

Documentation is also available at http://aposong.readthedocs.io

Alternatively, a robotic client is implemented in the robotic.py module in this APOsong repository. This makes use of the command set provided by aposong.py, but adds in functionality for opening and closing the dome at appropriate times and under appropriate conditions, and selecting targets and exposure sequences from entries in the Postgres database.

pwi1m runs Windows. For normal operation, several things must be running:

• the PWI4 software to control the telescope: this provides
  • as interactive graphical interface
  • several ASCOM drivers for telescope, port 1 focuser, and mirror cover control
  • a custom PlaneWave API interface
• ASCOM remote to make the telescope, focuser, mirror covers and camera / filter wheel accessible. This is used to set up the ASCOM cameras connected to PWI1: port 1 imaging camera, port 2 acquisition/guide camera, and eShel spectrograph detector
• A custom Alpaca server which supports Alpaca drivers for:
• the Zaber focusing stage (Zaber XX) through an ASCOM Focuser device,
• the iodine stage (Thorlabs TLS 150 stage), commanded through an ASCOM Focuser device,
• the iodine cell temperature controller (Thorlabs TC300 controller), commanded through an ASCOM Switch device
• the Shelyak eShel calibration unit, through an ASCOM Switch device.

On pwi1m, the telescope is controlled through the PWI4 software. This also has the capability to control an ASCOM camera, necessary when using PWI4 to construct a pointing model.

On starting PWI4, devices are controlled from the left panel, which has five tabs: Mount/Focus/Rotate/M3/Temp. You connect to the telescope using the Connect button on the Mount tab, and you can enable/disable the azimuth and altitude motors. On the Focus tab, you connect to the focuser and enable/disable it, and on the Rotate tab, you connect and enable/disable the rotator. On the Temp tab, you connect the OTA, which allows you to get temperature monitoring, control fans, etc. The M3 tab is used to position the tertiary to the Nasmyth ports: Port 1 is the port with the rotator and focuser.

You can slew the telescope using the SkyViewer tab: click on the desired location, then confirm with Goto button. You can also just enter coordinates directly on the Goto tab. Tracking should be started after the slew. You can monitor the tracking performance with the Tracking tab. Temperatures can be viewed on the Temperature tab. Finally, a camera can be controlled through the Camera tab; you need to select the camera (ASCOM or MaximDL), and then connect to it.

The PWI also has ASCOM drivers for Telescope and Focuser, which the control software uses. The PWI also has its own web interface (see https://planewave.com/files/software/PWI4/python/), which we use to get some information that is not available through the ASCOM driver.

ASCOM remote must be installed and configured to see the native ASCOM devices. This is achieved through the Setup button. Simply choose the type of device and select the correct driver.

Several devices are controlled via ASCOM Alpaca, as implemented in the Alpyca package, using custom Alpaca drivers developed using the AlpycaDevice templates:

* ASCOM Focuser devices

1. built using Thorlabs 150 https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=10285
2. built using Zaber stage https://software.zaber.com/motion-library/api/py

* ASCOM Switch devices

1. TC300 https://www.thorlabs.com/thorproduct.cfm?partnumber=TC300, https://www.thorlabs.com/drawings/a037cd0c76c0bd79-A3C155F8-CDFD-BAC7-1B554FE246DB47DD/TC300-Manual.pdf
2. Shelyak eShel calibration unit, built using K8056 routine

Documentation of the Alpaca drivers can be found at http://APOalpyca.readthedocs.io.

Dome control is implemented through software running on a Raspberry Pi, dome1m.

Low-level functions are implemented in the APOAshDome.py module. An ASCOM Alpaca interface was implemented using the templates from the AlpycaDevice package. Software is archived at https://github.com/holtzmanjon/APOalpyca.

APOAshDome controls dome shutter and rotation through relays, reads dome position through an encoder, and also reads dome home switch. For the encoder, the pulses are read using the pigpiod daemon, so that must be installed and started every time the computer is rebooted:

sudo pigpiod -s 10

This has been implemented in /etc/rc.local on dome1m.

The dome software can be run locally from a python interface: from APOalpyca/device, start python and import APOAshdome. A Dome object can be instantiated through which properties and methods can be accessed:

import APOAshDome
D = APOAshDome.APOAshDome()
...

For documentation of the methods, see http://APOalpyca.readthedocs.io.

dome1m also runs an ASCOM Alpaca SafetyMonitor, APOSafety. This returns True/False for issafe() by querying 25m and 35m dome status: if either is open, then issafe() returns True. APOSafety also has some custom supported actions to query 25m and 35m dome status independently, and has an Action('override',t) method that sets a timer within which issafe() returns True, regardless of 25m and 35m status.

The Alpyca servers runs on port 5555 on dome1m. To start the Alpaca devices after a reboot:

cd APOalpyca/device 
python domeapp.py

• Install Windows 11 from NMSU USB. Account SONG
• Install TigerVNC 64-1.13.1 and TigerVNC-winvnc-1.13.1
• Install ASCOM 6.6SP2 (installs .NET 3.5)
• Install ASCOM Remote 6.7.1
• Install Anaconda3
• OpenVPN?
• Cisco AnyConnect?
• git for Windows

Modify timezone, location, display setting (for remote VNC), firewall as needed (for ASCOM Remote and TigerVNC), and power settings (don't let computer go to sleep).

For the spectrograph spec1m computer:
   QHY AllInOne StableVer.20220817
   pywinusb to control USB relay
   visual studio C++ for alpyca install to run watchdog
   pip install yoctopuce for thermocouple

For the telescope pwi1m computer:

Camera drivers:
   Atik drivers
   QSI drivers (if needed)

Telescope software:
   Planewave PWI4
   PWTools ?
 
eShel software:
   pip install pyserial
   Keyspan 19H USB-to-serial
   
TC300:
   pip install pyserial
   Thorlabs TC300B software (for desktop control)
   
Thorlabs LTS stage:
   pip install pythonnet
   Thorlabs Kinesis software (for desktop control)
   
Zaber stage:
   pip install zaber_motion
   Zaber launcher software (for desktop control)
   
 

anaconda

alpyca, tkthread, importlib_resources, photutils, astroscrappy, astroplan, astroquery, influxdb_client

postgres 13

dnf install postgresql postgresql-server

dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm
dnf install -y https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadmin/pgadmin4/yum/pgadmin4-redhat-repo-2-1.noarch.rpm

dnf install pgadmin4

Need to set up correct password authetication in pg_hba.conf and postgresql.conf

influxdb

# RedHat and CentOS
# Add the InfluxData key to verify downloads
curl --silent --location -O \
https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdata-archive_compat.key \
&& echo "393e8779c89ac8d958f81f942f9ad7fb82a25e133faddaf92e15b16e6ac9ce4c  influxdata-archive_compat.key" \
| sha256sum --check - && cat influxdata-archive_compat.key \
| gpg --dearmor \
| tee /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-influxdata > /dev/null

# Add the InfluxData repository to the repository list.
basearch=x86_64
cat <<EOF | tee /etc/yum.repos.d/influxdata.repo
[influxdata]
name = InfluxData Repository - Stable
baseurl = https://repos.influxdata.com/stable/${basearch}/main
enabled = 1
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-influxdata
EOF

# Install influxdb
dnf install influxdb2

systemctl start influxdb

influxdb-client

 
  # amd64
  cd /home/local/influx
  wget https://dl.influxdata.com/influxdb/releases/influxdb2-client-2.7.5-linux-amd64.tar.gz
  tar xvf influxdb2-client-2.7.5-linux-amd64.tar.gz
  cp influx /usr/local/bin

   influx config create --config-name aposong --org NMSU --host-url http://localhost:8086 --token ***

For fresh install from backup

rm -rf /var/lib/influxdb
systemctl restart influxdb
influxdb setup --token ADMIN_TOKEN
influx restore /path/to/backup/  --full

grafana

wget -q -O gpg.key https://rpm.grafana.com/gpg.key
sudo rpm --import gpg.key
wget -q -O gpg.key https://rpm.grafana.com/gpg.key
rpm --import gpg.key
vi /etc/yum.repos.d/grafana.repo
dnf install grafana
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start grafana-server

Copy existing grafana.db to /var/lib/grafana

dnf install tigervnc-server

strongswan and ipsec.conf, etc. for communication with Aarhus