The manual was created with the help of Mike Bradshaw, Greg Stafford,
Dave Harvey, Joe Hoscheidt, Jim
Grantham, and Gary Rosenbaum.
Mike Lesser, Gary Schmidt, and Grant Williams developed the Steward Observatory CCD guiding
systems and along with Dave Baxter, Bob Peterson, and Jeff Rill also
contributed to this
guide.
Comments, corrections, and suggestions for this manual should be directed to Paul Smith.
See also the ITL CCD Systems page.
If you require help or advice concerning the use of the Bok 90" telescope or
facility instrumentation,
please contact the following people (in this order):
After hours phone numbers of these individuals can be found in the 90"
control room.
There MUST be a certified observer present in order to operate the
telescope and instrumentation.
Observers should be especially alert to potential hazards
while at the observatory since
usually there will be no one else at the site during normal operations.
In addition,
help is many minutes away even assuming that you can successfully
call for help in an emergency.
Please remember that moving telescopes and domes are heavy, unforgiving
pieces of machinery that can do serious damage.
The observatory staff does its best to make the site as safe as possible,
but we urge you to report any potential hazards immediately.
Please report any problems encountered with the guiding system in use
in that night's Trouble Report.
Make sure that the "CCD Group" is checked on the trouble report form.
Be as detailed as possible in your description of the problem(s).
It may also help in diagnosing problems if relevant guider CCD images
are saved and identified so that they can be found and examined by
support/technical personnel.
At the telescope:
In the control room:
The Guiding control GUI is pictured below (the large window taking up most
of the example screenshot)
and runs on the autoguiding PC.
It is IMPORTANT to shut down the guiding system in the case of threatening weather. If there is no threat of lightning, the guiding system can be left running of the end of the
night.
In the control room:
At the telescope:
1. Introduction and Acknowledgments.
This manual is intended to be a convenient reference guide for
observers certified to use the Bok Telescope and CCD Guider Systems.
Contact the Steward Observatory (SO) operations office (621-5136;
bpeterson@as.arizona.edu)
or
Paul Smith (621-2779;
psmith@as.arizona.edu)
if you need to be certified.
Emphasis is placed on the safely of observers and the equipment in this
document. A hard copy of this manual is located in the 90" control room.
In the event of a discrepancy between the Web and hard copy versions of
this manual, the Web version will take precedence.
Back to the top of the document.2. Basic Information About The Guiders.
Back to the top
of the document.3. Observer and Instrument Safety (In case you need assistance...).
IMPORTANT: Please read the
Guidelines
for Observing at Steward Observatory telescopes.
In case of problems with the guiding systems:
Back to the top of the document.4. Startup of the Guiding System.
For the Cassegrain guiding system:
Back to the top of the document.5. Guider Operations and the Control GUI.
Back to the top of the document.6. Shutting down Guiding System.
Back to the top of the document.
Back to the Bok Telescope Manual.
Back to the 90" Home Page.
The 90" cognizant observer is
Paul Smith
--psmith@as.arizona.edu
