Coordinate Fields:

HA: Current telescope and next object hour angle in hours, minutes, and seconds. Background is yellow when +/- 4.75<HA< +/- 5, red when HA >= 5 or HA <= -5 by default (user-configurable)

RA: Current telescope and next object right ascension in hours, minutes, and seconds.

Dec: Current telescope and next object declination in degrees, minutes, and seconds.

Epoch: Current telescope and next object coordinate epoch of precession.

Airmass: Current telescope and next object airmass. Background is yellow when 2<Am<3, red when Am>3 by default (user-configurable).

Zenith Dist.: Current telescope and next object zenith distance in degrees.

Dome: Current dome azimuth in degrees. 0=north, 90=east.

Focus: Current secondary mirror focus position in ADU's. Valid range 0-4095.

X: Guide probe X position in ADU's. Valid range 0-4095.

Y: Guide probe Y position in ADU's. Valid range 0-4095.

Starts a slew if one is currently enabled.

Disables a slew if one is currently enabled. If a slew is in progress, or in an emergency runaway you willstill need to hit the CANCEL button on the front panel, though.

Does a global update of the telescope coordinates and GAM motor positions, and writes the Current Positions file.

Position Controls:

Contains the controls for moving the telescope.

Slew: Opens the Set Slew Position dialog box for entering the coordinates of the next object.

Library: Opens the Set Library Object dialog box for entering the number of a library object to slew to.

Zenith: Opens the Set Zenith Position dialog box for slewing the telescope to the zenith position.

Cover: Opens the Set Cover Position dialog box for slewing the telescope to the cover removal position.

Initialization Controls:

Contains the controls for initializing the telescope and the GAM.

Scope: Opens the Initialize Telescope dialog for setting the telescope coordinates to a known position.

Dome: Opens the Initialize Dome dialog for setting the dome azimuth to a known value.

Focus: Opens the Initialize Focus dialog for stetting the focus position to a known value.

Date: Opens the Set Date/Time dialog for setting the date and time in TCS.

Epoch: Opens the Set Display Epoch dialog for setting the current display epoch in TCS.

GAM: Sends the GAM motors to the following positions:

Axis 3: 0 (C)

Axis 1: 0 (C)

Stage: Stowed

Beam Selector: South port

Misc. Controls:

Controls that don't fit into one of the above categories.

Trail: Opens the Set Trail Length dialog for setting up the telescope to trail a star along the spectrograph slit.

Offset: Opens the Set Offset dialog for doing an offset in RA and/or Dec from one object to another.

Sl Foc: Opens the Slew To Focus dialog box for slewing the secondary mirror to a given focus.

Probe: Opens the Set Probe Position dialog for moving the guide probe to a new position.

GAM:

Controls that move various motors in the GAM.

Imaging: Moves the GAM axial filter forward or back. The current position is displayed in the box. The background is yellow when this filter is unavailable (i.e. blocked by the beam selector), and red in the case of an error. Names are definable in the Filters/Switches Preferences tab.

Spectral: Moves the GAM south port filter forward or back. The current position is displayed in the box. The background is yellow when this filter is unavailable (i.e. the beam selector stage is stowed), and red in the case of an error. Names are definable in the Filters/Switches Preferences tab.

Stage: Moves the beam selector stage to one of either 2 or 4 possible positions. The current position is displayed in the box. Stage position names are definable in the Stage/Mirror/Probe Preferences tab.

Beam Selector: Moves the beam selector between the north, east, south, and west ports of the GAM. The background is yellow when the beam selector is unavailable (i.e. the beam selector stage is stowed), and red in the case of an error. Position names are definable in the Stage/Mirror/Probe Preferences tab.

Switches 1:

Switches which toggle output lines on the GAM to turn on/off various accessories. They are black when off, green when on. Names are user-definable in the Filters/Switches Preferences tab.

Video Cam: Turns the finder video camera on/off.

Tube Fans: Turns the 4 tube circulation fans on/off.

Spec Comp: Turns the current spectrograph comparison source on/off. Either Ne/Hg or Fe Hollow cathode.

Outlet 4: Reserved.

Outlet 5: Reserved.

Outlet 6: Reserved.

Line 7: Reserved.

Line 8: Reserved.

Switches 2:

Switches which toggle various TCS modes on/off. They are black when off, green when on, except for Dome, which is red when off, green when on. State: This is a transparent box above the Guider switch which contains the word Initialized in green if TCS is initialized and Un-Initialized in red if TCS is not yet initialized.

Guider: Toggles a flag which gets saved to the current coords file describing the state of the autoguider.

Dome: Turns dome tracking on/off.

Rate Cor: Turns rate correction (the first derivative of the pointing model) on/off. In theory, tracking is more accurate if rate correction is on.

Cos Dec: Turns on/off TCS's adjustment for the cosine of the current declination to its slew, set, and guide rates.

Status:

An array of LED-like controls that can be either , , or . The general logic, as with the rest of WinTICS, is that it is OK to observe if all the LED's are green, but not if any of them are red. Yellow is a special case for the Limits LED only.

Track: Green if the telescope is tracking, red if it is not.

Trailing: Red if the telescope is trailing, green if it is not.

Setting: Red if the telescope is setting, green if it is not.

Slewing: Red if the telescope is slewing, green if it is not.

Limits: Green if the telescope is above the software horizon limits, yellow if approaching limits, and red if at the final limit.

GAM: Red if a motor in the GAM is in motion, green if not.

Aux Track: Red if Aux Track is turned on on the TCS front panel, green if it is not.

Drives: Red if the telescope drives are turned off on the TCS front panel, green if they are on.

Dome Ok: Red if the dome is not yet at its final position during a slew, green if it has reached it.

Utilities:

Various items to assist the observer during an observing run.

Object: The name of an object to look up in either the WinTICS object coordinate database or the planner database.

Look Up: Looks up the coordinates of the object in the object box, and puts them in the Set Slew Position dialog. If the object is not found, opens the Add Object to Database dialog to allow the user to enter the new object in the database.

Finder: Calls the Guide program with the proper arguments to produce a view of the sky matching the current telescope position, with a box indicating the size of the CCD field of view.

Planner: Opens the Planner Options dialog for calculating the times of minimum and rise / transit / set for variable stars.

Probe Pos: Looks up the probe X-Y position and the telescope offset from the center of the field for the current object in the probe position database, and puts the values in the Set Probe Position and Set Offset dialogs respectively. If the current object is not found, opens the Add To Probe Pos DB dialog to allow the user to enter the new object into the database.

Moon: Opens the Phase of the Moon window which shows the current phase of the Moon and whether it is waxing or waning.

Log File: Opens the Observing Log Entry dialog for entering observing log information for the night.

Trouble: Opens the Trouble Report dialog for entering information on problems with the telescope.

Web: Opens the Web dialog for opening frequently used web pages (such as weather satellite photos).

Status Bar:

Along the bottom of the window, the current position of the Sun and Moon, along with the current date/time in several formats. All are updated once per minute:

Moon: Percent illuminated, up/down, and current altitude. The background is gray when the Moon is down and yellow when it is up.

Sun: Up/down and current altitude in degrees. The background is gray during astronomical twilight, dark blue between nautical and astronomical twilight (-12 to -18), yellow between civil and nautical twilight (-6 to -12 degrees), and red above -6.

UT: The current UT from TCS. Accurate to +/- 1 minute.

UT Date: The current UT date from TCS.

ST: The current LMST from TCS.

JD: The current Julian date from TCS.

Local: The current local standard time from the computer running WinTICS. The time of the WinTICS PC can be set automatically via NTP. See the Time Preferences tab. The background is red if you are using NTP and WinTICS has failed to connect to the primary and backup time servers for the specified number of tries. If the time was last set using a backup server, the background is yellow.