This is control software intended for small radio telescopes, such as the Haystack Old SRT or New SRT
The software is made of two parts: a server and a client. The server is plugin-based and must be supplied with the implementation of the control logic for the particular hardware configuration.
Currently, the only production-grade hardware plugins supplied here are for used with the Old SRT (CASSI mount, digital receiver model). It is highly recommended you update the STAMP controller with the firmware with fractional count support SRT Memo 22.
Plugins for the Measurement Computing PCI-DAS4020/12 A/D converter are currently in a rudimentary state and will be added some time in the future.
A plugin for the SPID Elektronik Big RAS drive and MD01 controller using the ROT2PROG protocol is available as a preliminary release and supports essential pointing functionality.
A radio telescope simulator plugin is available and the default configuration when the software is installed.
For more a more in-depth description of the software, basics of radio astronomy and an assortment of lab projects and exercises, have a look at this document.
Follow the usual autotools routine, i.e.
./autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install
The default configuration of the client software points to the server running a (modified) Old SRT at the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Vienna. If you want to run the simulator, you must download a HI data file (sky_vel.dat., available as .gz or .zip) from here, unpack it and place it in the directory the server is executed from, which in typical UNIX systems is your home directory, if you launch the server via the desktop icon, or in the current directory, if you launch it via the console.
If the simulator won't start, make sure to try to launch radtelsrv (server/simulator) from the command line for extra debug info.
There is currently no installer for OSX, see HOWTO_OSX for a list of instruction how to set up a build environment and install the software.
You can build this software on Windows via MingW, but you may also download a pre-built windows installer (.msi-file) here
NOTE: On Windows, the (extracted) simulator data must be placed in the base installation directory (usually C:\Program Files\radtel), NOT in the bin/ subdirectory!
Once you have manage to successfully install the software and data file, launch radtelsrv (server/simulator) and the client (radtel), then configure the host by clicking cog wheel at the right side of the top menubar and change the Host entry to localhost, the click the Reconnect button at the bottom of the menu or restart the application.
This section will be expanded at a later date. For now there are only basic pointers.
The buttons in the left corner of the menu bar can be used to disperse and collect the tabs of the client.
The button with the cog wheel icon opens the configuration menu.
The status field at the botton shows the current status of the telescope, such as position, slewing or spectral acquisition. It can be hidden by clicking the expander button in the bottom right corner of the window.
...should be obvious
This is a map of the currently visibly sky at the location of the remote telescope in polar projection, with north at 0 and south at 180 degrees (on the northern hemisphere). The zenith is the center of the diagram. The dashed blue line and solid outline represent the plane and approximate outline of the Milky May. Circles indicate catalogue objects. The red line indicates the physical movement limits of the telescope, while the green line (and shaded are) represents the local horizon (building, trees, etc.)
When the mouse pointer hovers on top of the map, the current coordinate info below the cursor is printed in the top right.
The time of the projection can be shifted by right-click and drag.
Ctrl + left click commands the telescope to drive to that position. If a catalogue object (disk) is clicked in this manner, the telescoped will move there and in addition, tracking will be enabled.
If tracking is enabled, left-click anywhere within the sky map will de-select the object and deactivate tracking.
If acquisition is enabled, shows current and cumulative average spectra. The GUI elements should be mostly self-explanatory, here are the key/mouse bindings:
left click and drag to define a zoom box
scroll wheel for two-axis zoom
shift + scroll for Y-axis zoom
Ctrl + scroll for X-axis zoom
lower case "a" to autoscale
Ctrl + left drag to fit a Gaussian to the selected data
lower case "u" deactivates the Gaussian fit box
alt + click to define new center frequency for spectrometer
There is also a right-click popup-menu for extra functions.
Configure the telescope position. Click Get Coordinates to update the control fields in this tab with the current status of the remote telescope. The remaining functions should be obvious if you have used any telescope before.
Configure the spectrometer. Click Get Configuration to update the control fields in this tab with the current status of the remote telescope.
The remaining functions will be described in more detail at a later date, but be warned of one thing: do not set the acquisition frequency range too wide. This will work without problems with the simulated radio telescope, but in real systems, spectral acquisition takes time and extreme configurations can lead to hours of wait time. See the REC status field for the ETA of the next spectrum. If it is excessive, you may have misconfigured the system. In such a situation, you should scroll/go to the bottom of the tab and deactivate Spectral Acquisition, then reconfigure the Acquisition Frequency Range to a much smaller (typically a few MHz) bandwidth and re-enable.
The plot on the top will show the continuum vales (integral) of previously recorded spectra, the waterfall diagram on the bottom will show a colour-coded spectral history. You can use the level slider on the right to somewhat adjust the colour cutoff.
These are automated observation programs. Their function will be described at a later date. You're welcome to find out yourself tho.
If a (webcam) video URI is configured on the server, the stream will be shown whenever this tab is visible. Note that streaming will be automatically chancelled after 1 second when the tab is hidden in order to save bandwidth.
In the default configuration, a radio telescope simulator plugin is enabled and will show you a control interface once started.
To the left, you see an image of the HI emissions of the Milky Way given the current configuration of the telescope. You can modify the colour cuts of the image by changing the sliders just to the right. If you want to set cuts in the VLSR, change Vmin and Vmax, the click Redraw. Note that this will only influence the data range from which the displayed image is generated, but never cut off the simulated data generation range, which will always range from +400 to -400 km/s.
To change the simulation parameters, refer to the entry fields on the right. Any change to an entry (either via the range buttons or manually followed by enter key/changing the field) will result in the immediate reconfiguration of the simulated telescope.
Rbeam sets the simulated beam radius for the simulated resolution
TSYS sets the system temperature
Sigma sets the amount of simulated nose
Eff. is the efficiency of the telescope.
LAT and LON set the geographical location of the telescope
Rate sets the simulated spectra per second
Sun sets the current radio flux density from the sun.
Hot Load sets the temperature of the simulated hot load calibrator
Noise Fig. sets the noise figure of the simulated amplifier chain
The server configuration for actual hardware can be a bit tricky. If you own one of the Haystack SRTs, you're welcome to mail me for some help.
The configuration files for the server can be found in your configured $SYSCONFDIR path, typically /etc/radtel/.
The configuration files should be fairly self-explanatory. To enable a particular set of plugins, specify them at the plugins= line in server.cfg following their naming/directory scheme, e.g. SRT/srt_spectrometer, MD01/md01_rot2prog, etc.
The available plugins can be found in your configured $LIBDIR after installation, typically /usr/lib/radtel.
The plugin configuration files exist in the backends subdirectory of your configuration file path, i.e. /etc/radtel/backends. Make sure to adapt the parameters as needed.
NOTE: beware of trailing whitespaces, in particular regarding plugin file names, as they are not being pruned. If in doubt, add a semicolon to explicitly delimit the parameter.
If you'd like to try the freely programmable observation mode implemented via GtkNodes, install the library and build the client from the gtknodes branch.
You will find the Node Editor in the Observation tab. To show the available nodes, right-click the node view for a popup-menu.