Paper
11 July 2016 Monitoring the performance of the Southern African Large Telescope
Christian Hettlage, Chris Coetzee, Petri Väisänen, Encarni Romero Colmenero, Steven M. Crawford, Paul Kotze, Paul Rabe, Stephen Hulme, Janus Brink, Deneys Maartens, Keith Browne, Ockert Strydom, David De Bruyn
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Abstract
The efficient operation of a telescope requires awareness of its performance on a daily and long-term basis. This paper outlines the Fault Tracker, WebSAMMI and the Dashboard used by the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) to achieve this aim. Faults are mostly logged automatically, but the Fault Tracker allows users to add and edit faults. The SALT Astronomer and SALT Operator record weather conditions and telescope usage with WebSAMMI. Various efficiency metrics are shown for different time periods on the Dashboard. A kiosk mode for displaying on a public screen is included. Possible applications for other telescopes are discussed.
© (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Christian Hettlage, Chris Coetzee, Petri Väisänen, Encarni Romero Colmenero, Steven M. Crawford, Paul Kotze, Paul Rabe, Stephen Hulme, Janus Brink, Deneys Maartens, Keith Browne, Ockert Strydom, and David De Bruyn "Monitoring the performance of the Southern African Large Telescope", Proc. SPIE 9910, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VI, 99102M (11 July 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2230484
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KEYWORDS
Large telescopes

Telescopes

Astronomical telescopes

Automatic tracking

Efficient operations

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