Data collection and archival for the William Herschel Telescope

Lewis R. Jones; Jonathan M. Burch

doi:10.1117/12.19104

1 July 1990 Data collection and archival for the William Herschel Telescope

Lewis R. Jones, Jonathan M. Burch

Proceedings Volume 1235, Instrumentation in Astronomy VII; (1990) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.19104
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation for the 21st Century, 1990, Tucson, AZ, United States

Abstract

Astronomers using the William Herschel Telescope are able to collect data from CCD and photoncounting systems attached to instruments such as ISIS (triple spectrograph), Taurus (Fabry-Perot spectrograph and focal reducer for direct imaging) and FOS (the Faint Object Spectrograph). Images are collected in the Detector Memory System and from there are transferred into the System Computer, which is responsible for writing the data into an internal, UK Starlink, standard format. A single acquisition process on the System Computer is used to collect data and control the process of acquisition for all observing configurations. During an observation, ancillary information is gathered from other parts of the system and is used as header information for the final archived image. Collection of header information, image data, and information for the observer log is, in the case of ISIS, complicated by the requirement to organise collection independently and in parallel on each of the three detector arms of the instrument. The information collected on the System Computer is archived in an extended FITS format, necessary to allow extensive ancillary data sets to be stored with the astronomical data, and is eventually transferred to the RGO at its UK site for long-term storage. The archive software has been produced in conjunction with the Netherlands Foundation for Radio-Astronomy and allows local and remote query facilities.

Citation Download Citation

Lewis R. Jones and Jonathan M. Burch "Data collection and archival for the William Herschel Telescope", Proc. SPIE 1235, Instrumentation in Astronomy VII, (1 July 1990); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.19104

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KEYWORDS

Computing systems

Sensors

Telescopes

Data archive systems

Image processing

Astronomy

Spectrographs

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