News from the 30m Telescope

Summer 2000 Transport Schedule

Transports between IRAM Granada and the observatory on Pico Veleta will be arranged according to the following time table:

	Granada-30m	30m-Granada
Monday	08:15h	10:30h
Tuesday	08:15h	10:30h and 17:00h
Wednesday	(no transport organized)
Thursday	10:00h	17:00h
Friday	08:15h	10:30h and 17:00h

Rainer MAUERSBERGER and Javier LOBATO

New Control System for the 30m Telescope

We are making continued progress on our plans for a New Control System (NCS) for the 30m telescope and in several areas decisions about priorities, features, and solutions will be made soon. Comments and input from all users and friends of the 30m are always very welcome and important, especially during this phase of initial decisions (see below).

In the near future many hardware components of the control system for the 30m telescope will be replaced by more modern equipment. We take this as an occasion to consider very broadly the desired features of a new system including:

$\bullet$

observing modes and telescope control, as well as

$\bullet$

data acquisition, processing, and archiving,

while maintaining the many successful features of the current system. Our goals are to:

$\bullet$

improve current observing modes in terms of flexibility, convenience, and data quality,

$\bullet$

design and implement new observing modes,

$\bullet$

optimize observing modes for mm-wavelength observations with a large single-dish telescope,

$\bullet$

allow an efficient use of telescope time,

$\bullet$

prepare the system for foreseeable new hardware.

We expect that a core of high priority features will form essential parts of the new system:

$\bullet$

observations with focal-plane arrays, including bolometers and heterodyne receiver arrays,

$\bullet$

continuous data taking, e.g., fast on-the-fly observations, which can be combined with other options, like frequency switching and wobbler switching,

$\bullet$

remote observing, service observing, and flexibility of observing and scheduling.

Linked to these core features is a need to:

$\bullet$

foresee very large data rates,

$\bullet$

optimize the standard observing modes and make them easy to use,

$\bullet$

automate where possible.

Details and regular updates can be found on the WWW pages for this project, which are situated at the URL http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M. For all major topics related to the NCS we are working on reports detailing our plans and proposals. As soon as 1st complete versions of these reports are ready, they will be announced on our WWW site and in the IRAM Newsletter in order to invite a general review and comments.
For example, observing modes and user commands for the New Control System are described in:

  $\mbox{$\bullet$}$

sep=-1em

Title:

"New Control System for the 30m Telescope: Specifications: Observing Modes and User Commands"

Identifier - Master URL:

http://www.iram.es//FutureControl30M/Specifications/Spec_OM/Spec_Observing_Modes.html

Revision:

Spec_Observing_Modes, draft, V 0.5

Date:

1999-12-21

Author:

Hans Ungerechts, with many contributors

Description - about this document:

Requirements and specifications of observing modes and user commands for the new control system for the IRAM 30m telescope (NCS 30m). This document adopts the user's (astronomer's) view of the system, and will be revised from draft (V 0.5) to the first official version (V 1.0) in 2000 June/July, taking into account comments received. More comments are always welcome.

Hans UNGERECHTS

30M Remote Observing from MPIfR, Bonn

A remote observing station for the IRAM 30m telescope has been installed at MPIfR, Bonn. After sucessful tests in May, 2000, it is now available to users. The station can be employed for observations, but also for the real-time monitoring of activity at the 30m (i.e. during service observations). Astronomers interested in using it for their project should contact Clemens Thum (thum@iram.fr). Technical questions can be sent to Walter Brunswig (brunswig@iram.es).

The Remote Observing Station consists of a Linux computer with an ISDN interface. Communication is possible via ISDN and also via Internet (for monitoring and night-time). Calibrated data files are transferred on-line and can be further processed locally using CLASS, ... . Raw-data transfer (i.e. bolometer) is available upon request. OTF data, however, is not transferred because of the high data volume. In this case, the remote observer can do the data analysis via network on a computer at the telescope.

After the remote observing posts at IRAM Granada and IRAM Grenoble, this is the third station put into operation and the first one outside of IRAM. More installations of this kind are foreseen in Paris and Madrid.

Walter BRUNSWIG