Arrakis Observatory - Electronics

www.arrakis.cc

Electronics

Video

Three video sources will be present in the observatory. The video output of the individual sources are duplicated either from the source itself or by a video switcher/distribution amplifier. Composite video signals from each of the sources are distributed to a Canon network camera server. The server allows for the video feed of any or all of the sources to be viewed in a Java viewer applet over the LAN. This also will allow the video to be viewed over a dial-up connection or over the internet or via a Java applet imbedded in a page on this web site.

Duplicated direct video feeds will also be distributed to either or both 5” or 9” video monitors in the control room and can be recorded to S-VHS video tape or recorded to hard disk by video capture.

Santa Barbara Instrument Group STV Digital Integrating Video Camera and Stand-Alone Autoguider
The STV composite video output can be used to focus the Takahashi FS-78 or monitor the guiding or video images.

Canon VC-C4
The VC-C4 is a remotely controllable pan/tilt/zoom camera that will be mounted inside the observatory. It will serve as an “Observatory Cam” allowing monitoring of the mount, scope and roof conditions as well as the outside weather conditions. The camera can be focused on wall mounted digital temperature, humidity and rain sensor readouts to remotely assess the local weather conditions.

Camera pan, tilt or zoom control is accomplished via serial commands from the viewing software on the LAN or over the Internet or it can be operated locally either with a hand-held IR remote or with a hard-wired Telemetrics joystick controller.

Adirondack Video Astronomy StellaCam EX Video Camera
The StellaCam EX camera is a highly sensitive video camera capable of imaging both deep sky and planetary objects. It will be mounted as a video finder scope on the FSQ and can be used through the FSQ itself for T-Point mapping or video astronomy.

Canon VB101 Network Camera Server
The STV VB101 transmits live video over the LAN or via the Internet. It accepts 4 camera inputs and enables remote control of Canon pan/tilt/zoom cameras over the LAN or Internet. Five cameras will be accessible from the camera server including an Observatory Cam, Stellacam Video (as a finder scope or through the telescope), STV video output and front and rear security cameras. The Observatory Cam and Stellacam video will be accessible to users of this site through a Java applet imbedded in a web page.

Power Distribution, Ethernet and Wiring

There are 2 shielded wire raceways going from the control room to the observatory. There is also be a swing-out rack mount system mounted in the observatory. This is a cable and electronics management unit that has rack mounted power strips for wall warts and AC plugs, built-in dimmable faceplate lighting, AC voltage filtering and metering and two 1000 VA rack mount pure sine wave UPS's.

The observatory has a dual floor. The first level is insulated from the control room observatory like any attic ceiling. There is a false floor above that with all the wires, power supplies, etc. in between. This is patterned after the false floors in many computer equipment rooms. You just lift up the panels for access.

Power is remotely controlled through a MOXA power controller accessed over a LAN IP address. The power controller has 8 switchable 110V outlets. Additional remotely switched outlets are available through two Technical Innovations four outlet AC boxes. Each outlet can be controlled separately by a button in the RF control software. With 2 RF units, there are 8 additional switchable outlets when running 2 instances of the RF software. All electronics are UPS buffered. Power switching of roof movement and on/off control of the mount, CCD camera, STV, Stellacam, Canon 10D, dew heater and RoboFocus units is done via the observatory control computer.

The observatory is fully controllable remotely via the internet. Internet control is achieved with XP Remote.

The house has a central auto-sensing 10/100 Ethernet switch with redundant connections to, and between, the observatory and control room. Internet access is through a hardware firewall connected to a fixed IP address DSL modem.

Serial to Ethernet Server

A Moxa 4-port serial to Ethernet server is incorporated into the system to allow control of 4 RS-232 ports over the LAN. This requires only a single Ethernet connection to the control room PC. Native Windows applications access virtual com ports. The serial commands are converted to Ethernet packets, sent over the LAN and reconverted to RS-232 commands by the server. One of the 4 available ports will be used to link TheSky Astronomy Software to the Paramount ME mount. Two of the ports will connect to the two scope-mounted RoboFocus motors and can be controlled by CCDSoft, Maxim D/L, FocusMax or the RoboFocus control application. The fourth port will be used for the STV. Additional serial servers can be added with 1, 2 or 4 or more ports if needed or there is still an available native serial port on the PC.

To allow native Windows applications to communicate through the server's virtual COM ports of number 5 and above, I have acquired recoded versions of STV Snoop from Ron Wodaski and STV Remote from SBIG that have higher number COM ports enabled. TheSky and the RoboFocus Control Program ship with the higher numbered COM ports already available.