PARI Instruments


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	My primary responsiblility for instrumentation at PARI is to oversee the development of computer control of the PARI Observatories. The PARI Observatories include two 26-m radio telescopes, a 4.6-m radio telescope, and several optical telescopes. On this web p[age I discuss the RADIO TELESCOPES and the OPTICAL TELESCOPES The RADIO TELESCOPES The 26 m radio telescopes have receivers for 1420 MHz, 4.8 GHz, 6.7 GHz, and 12.2 GHz. The spectrometers used with the receivers are built by CyberSpectra, but come with DOS software. So, I began an upgrade of the receiver software to Visual Basic 6 in February 2001 and had a prototype ready by summer 2001. Also, the telescope software is DOS and we needed Windows control to link the spectrometer control to telescope control and provide communication between the two. In the Summer 2001, PARI hired a summer student intern (Jim Castelaz) to finish the work and write the code for the radio telescope interface. The telescope control (TeleControl) and the receiver software (SpecCon) communicate with each other so that the spectrometer records telescope status and position information, while the telescope knows the status of the data taking (e.g. how long is left in an integration). Both pieces of software work together to provide the 26-m radio telescopes with mapping capability. The observer tells the telescope where to start mapping, where to stop, and the interval from step to step in the raster scan process. We will be using this new software for a methanol maser monitoring program, and for peaking up on pulsars for the Pulsar Timing program..


	The Telecontrol panel is shown above - it has all the standard features expected of an observatory telescope control system. The spectrometer panel is shown below.


	The 4.6 m radio telescope is another story. It was original designed with circa 1980’s analog electronics and came with no software! So, we interfaced the analog electronics which consists of a dozen relays to a digital I/O card and a synchro card for the synchro position readouts. I wrote the initial VB 6 software, but the real work was done again by Jim Castelaz. We now have Visual Basic 6 software controling the 4.6 m radio telescope, and the spectrometer connected to that telescope. An image of the control panel is shown below. A newer JAVA Applet version of the form is on the way - it’s being developed by Dr. Joe Daugherty, a professor in Astronomy and Computer Science at UNC-Asheville

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The OPTICAL TELESCOPES

The Main Campus at PARI shown in the lower frame has a unique feature - an East-West Ridge with ideal contours to minimize seeing. This ridge at PARI has become known as the Optical Ridge. The upper frame shows a closeup of the Optical Ridge and the locations of current and future telescopes. The Galactic Survey and the Gamma Ray Afterglow telescopes are projects being conducted by graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill. The weather station and OVIEW contribute to seeing and transparency measurements. The 1.8 m and the 1.1 m telescopes are in the planning stages. PARI has acquired the figured mirrors for the large telescopes. Telescope structures and buildings come next! The 1.1 m telescope will be a prime focus camera. The 1.8 m is addaptive optics capable. It is still in definition stage, with use as a supernova search, a near earth object search, and gamma ray afterglow photometry system are under consideration. Closer to earth is the possibility to turn the 1.8 m mirror into a LIDAR instrument for atmospheric research. Click here to download the PDF File of the Poster Presented at the June 2002 AAS Meeting which describes the Optical telescopes in a bit more detail.

OVIEW is a suite of telescopes that includes a 5-inch telescope monitoring V<2 bright stars 24 hours a day for seeing and transparency yhe Bright Star Telescope), a solar lunar/lunar telescope, 3 small telescopes looking line-of-sight along the horizon towards distance transmission towers, and a telescope monitoring Polaris 24 hours a day. Not shown is a 10 inch telescope that will be located near OVIEW and used for targets of opportunity.

During the Summer 2001, PARI sponsored a Research Experiences for Undergraduates intern from the Unversity of North Carolina-Asheville. He explored the type of filter best suited for daytime photometry. This is needed as part of the Polaris and Bright Star Telescopes. Jeff’s final report, in the form of a poster is given below in PDF format:

Jeff Tharp’s Daytime Photometry Paper: Summer 2001


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	Modified 31 Dec 2002. mwc

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