Starview at PSU

Progress to Date

Spring 2001

Summer 2001

Fall/Winter 2002

Winter/Spring 2002

Summer 2002

Fall/Winter 2003

Winter/Spring 2003

Summer 2003

Remaining Activities

What we would like to add in future versions

Summer 2001:

• Assembled TI ProDome with the Digital Dome Works system in the basement of SB I.
• Assembled and tested the Meade LX-200.
• Reevaluated the LabVIEW based approach for remote telescope control
  • We came to the conclusion that the LabVIEW approach was not practical.
• Began software specification and design process.
• Researched the software tools and components needed to create the software.
• Wrote the first drafts of device driver specifications/design.

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Fall/Winter 2002:

• Revised the device driver documents.
• Created a Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) for the main application design and for the ISAPI dll.

  Automation Flow Diagrams for Coding (click on pictures to enlarge)

• Created an ISAPI conversion of cgic (Tom Boutell’s ANSI C library for CGI Programming), providing ISAPI programmers the features that CGI programmers get with cgic.
• Wrote a preliminary version of the Meade telescope device driver.

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Winter/Spring 2002:

• Tested our design ideas. Using the ISAPIC library, we wrote a basic ISAPI dynamic link library that got commands from the web. These commands were then processed by another program to control the telescope (via our very own telescope driver). It worked nicely.
• Updated the telescope driver to use N. Devillard’s INI parser library. Through the use of INI files, we are able to easily change driver settings (e.g. com port information).
• We wrote an ASCOM telescope wrapper, which provides an interface to all the ASCOM supported telescopes.
• Initiated the writing psuedocode for the main application.

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Summer 2002:

• Wrote the DDW (Dome) driver.
• Continue to write pseudocode for the main application.
• Are writing the weather driver.
• Are updating documents.

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Fall/Winter 2003:

• Wrote the camera driver.
• Began implementing main application.
• Wrote the focuser driver.

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Winter/Spring 2003:

• Continued implementation of main application
• Wrote ISAPI dll.

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Summer 2003:

• Full operation achieved in Basement Observatory.
• Initiated transition to wireless internet for beta-testing on temporary roof location.
• Fresh air at last!

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Remaining Activities:

• Testing and debugging of the final application.
• Set up the dome and telescope at the final location.
• Go online.
• Create application documentation for users of the software.
• Write an optional GUI interface for local users.
• Routine Software/Hardware maintenance.

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What we would like to add in future versions:

• Adaptive Optics support
• Advanced Image Processing

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