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Background. The Rothney Astrophysical Observatory (RAO) is operated by the Department of Physics & Astronomy of the University of Calgary The RAO was inaugurated on Jan. 7, 1972 0.4, 0.5 and 1.8 meter optical telescopes
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Background • The Rothney Astrophysical Observatory (RAO) is operated by the Department of Physics & Astronomy of the University of Calgary • The RAO was inaugurated on Jan. 7, 1972 • 0.4, 0.5 and 1.8 meter optical telescopes • The RAO is located near Priddis (Alberta), about 30km southwest of the Calgary city center • Current control software is broken
Overall Status • Decision to use ACS • U of C grad student hired • Began porting RAO control software ~May 2005 • Upgrade plagued by numerous problems: • Lack of Linux Port IO driver • Kernel module problems with OSes supported by ACS • Infrastructure and sys admin issues • Not enough man-power • Still, we are making progress
Why Use ACS? • Existing control system coupled too tightly with the Windows-only GUI • A very strong desire to control the telescope(s) remotely • Need to have semi-permanent support
Planned Usage of ACS • Present control system being converted from Windows-only GUI to (non-ACS) C++ classes • 3rd party libraries distributed with ACS will be used by these classes • Eventually ACSComponent-derived components will use these platform independent C++ objects as proxies to control the telescope • Extensive usage of the CDB
Usage to Date • 3rd party libraries distributed with ACS • ACS logging system • Tool for Automated Tests
Contributions to ACS • Kernel module to control Linux ports (September) • Security mechanism (sometime in the near future?)