PC Hardware

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PC Hardware

With the modern technology it is fundamental to manage the full instrumentation with a personal computer. At first sight the solution to best organize the computer can be very simple, but with a little deeper analysis it is not so simple.

My requests to be satisfied are:

  • use the same PC to manage the Paramount, the CCD camera, the focuser and the filter wheel, and, probably the dome;
  • avoid a lot of cables to bring the signal from the telescope to the PC;
  • avoid too much long cables, in particular for the CCD camera;
  • get the possibility to manage the telescope both from the dome and from the control room;
  • get the possibility to transfer to the control room a running session started in the dome.

I thought longtime before reaching the final solution that satisfy all my request.

I connected all the instrument to a Dual Pentium Pro 200MHz PC (384Mb RAM), under the dome roof, and I use the Windows XP Remote Desktop to manage that computer. After a year of activity, I can say that this solution works very well.

I have set up the bios of the Dual PPro so that it can works without monitor, mouse and keyboard, and that can be switched-on and switched-off directly from the control room.

In the control room I have realized a small electric cabinet that gives power control to the Paramount, CCD, focuser, filter wheel, telescope computer and dome motion. All the powers are under UPS protection so that an electricity network failure has no influence on my activity.

Even if the DualPPro is a PC ten years old I have noted no failure or difficult to manage all the instruments also during hard working sessions.

In the control room I have a last generation PC, with a Pentium IV HT technology, 1Gb RAM, that manage the EuMetSat receiver (see weather page) and gives me the possibility to remote connect the telescope PC. Moreover, I can transfer the frames from the original PC to this one just after their acquisition so that I can reduce the image just in real-time.

When I decide to use the observatory for public observation, or if it is necessary to monitor the telescope directly, I use a Pentium III laptop in the dome, just by the telescope: a simple data network (Ethernet) outlet gives me the connection to the PPro so that I can use all the instruments without disconnect and reconnect the cables.

Finally, I can really start a script session from the laptop in the dome, than disconnect the laptop, and use remote desktop from the PC inside the control room without session interruption.

Believe me: it's a real dream!!