The GTK and shell interface for the nightview package are implemented yet. Anybody can add other clients.
There are a 'night_exposure', 'night_temperature', 'night_filter', 'night_power' and 'night_control' shell utilities to control exposure, temperature, filter and batch use of a CCD camera. The night_control is only a wrapper of this set of utilities to get serie of astronomical images with different exposure times and filters.
All of utilities have standard behaviour. They are driven by the command line parameters. It can be useful for scripts or single command from shell. The common options of all commands are an internet address of the server. Run its without parameters to get short description of its options. The common options -host is defaulted to file:///tmp/.night_shock, it set the communication socket to a CCD camera.
Night_exposure make a one snaphot with specified parameters. It is invoked with
night_exposure - make one exposure on the camera non-iteratively Usage: night_exposure [-t time] [-s shutter on|off] [-b 1|2|3] [-o output] options: -t exposure time in seconds -s shutter state, on - open, off - close for dark frame -r select region by format: (x1,y1,x2,y2), default: full area -b binning, 1 - 1x1, 2 - 2x2, 3 - 3x3, default: 3 -c select chip, I - imaging (default), T - tracking -o name of an output file, default to nightview.fits -name object's name -obsname observer's name -comment some additional description enclosed in 'apostrophes' -z compress output file -host address:port internet address server, default: local connect Use Ctrl-C to interrupt the exposure or download in progress. Setting of environment variable NIGHTVIEW_HOST is equivalent to -host option.
where -t time is exposure time in seconds (real number). -o output gives name of the output file (default: nightview.fits). The binning can be -b 1,2,3 meaning 1x1 (full resolution), 2x2 (half resolution) and 3x3 (every pixel of image is composition of 9 chip's pixels). This switch don't change the area for readout. The readout area can be changed with -r option. The -s switch control the shutter (useful for dark frames). You can specify an object name for use in 'OBJECT' keyword of the FITS file header (defaulted to no keyword will used). The switches -obsname, -comment are also useful for filling the FITS header. The option -z compress output image, so output image is saved to nightview.fits.gz by default. Use Ctrl-C to interrupt the exposure or download in progress.
The readout area is selected by four integer numbers enclosed in braces. The coordinates starts at left bottom corner according to the standard mathematical convention (eg. no stupid computer graphics convention is used). The (1,1,100,100) selects a left bottom part of image. Don't forget use of apostrophes, your shell minds braces differently than you.
The switch -r (region) is useful for a faster downloading but only of part of an image. For example, it can be used for acquiring of the serie of the exposures with a fine time resolution (useful for measuring of periodic error of mount or observation of eclipses?).
The options after -o and -name requires a string. If you use a multi word name or an exotic character (please, suppose that all other a-z, A-Z and 0-9 are an exotic for your shell) enclose this string to apostrophes like this: 'F10/5.5 aperture 5 inches'.
The -o parameters specify the prefix of an output name. The resultant shape is prefix+number+character, where number designate the order in series and last character is selected filter. For example, the 10th image over R filter of the object (with prefix cluster) will be cluster10R.fits.
The shape of the output name can be changed with -oo option. The characters and so on can be arbitrary except: the integer format must precede the character and both must be presented.
Note for non-C programmers. The format "%d" will be print integers without leading zeros. The format "%02d" will be print integers with two decimal places: 01,02,03,04..09,10,11..99. Analogically for "%03d" and so on. The format "%s" will be print any string.
Nigh filter controls a colour wheel. It's developed to set of selected filter and list of possible filters. It is invoked with
night_filter - select filter or print current Usage: night_filter [-f filter] [-list] options -f set filter, one from list, may be: U,B,V,R,I -list list defined filters -host address:port internet address server, default: local connect Setting of environment variable NIGHTVIEW_HOST is equivalent to -host option.
The basic action is list the possible filters with -list option. Than you can select any filter from this set by the use -f option. The current filter will be show with info option. The list is generated by nightview server so the superuser can define the names of filters in the server's configure file. See above.
Nigh power controls a basic function of camera. It switch up, down of the power and print basic info. It is invoked with
night_power - control the power of camera Usage: night_power {on|off|info} [-host address] options: on switch on camera, failed if cammera not connected off switch off camera info print short info about camera -host address:port internet address server, default: local connect Setting of environment variable NIGHTVIEW_HOST is equivalent to -host option.
Without parameters prints help. The 'on' connect to a camera and switch it on. The 'off' option switch of the camera to down. The 'info' option prints a basic camera info (firmware description, number of pixels, pixel's sizes and so on) if camera is on.
Night_temparature controls temperature regulation on a camera. It is possible to set of the checkpoint and print the current value of temperature(s) and cooling power. It is invoked with
night_temperatute - controls the camera temperature Usage: night_temperature [get|set] [-t temperature] [-off] [-host address] options get: -t print ccd current temperature in degrees of Celsius -ta print air current temperature in degrees of Celsius -r print current cooling power (relatively, in percents) -f print current status of fan, on or off without switches print all available cooling information set: -t temperature set cooler temperature on value -off set temperature regulation off -host address:port internet address server, local connect is default Setting of environment variable NIGHTVIEW_HOST is equivalent to -host option.
The basic modes of this command are an informational 'get' (print of temperature of ccd and ambient, fan status and cooling power) and 'set' (set the ccd temperature to specified temperature or set off temperature regulation). Note, it is advised to turn off regulation, but leave the fan on for a minute or so prior to shutting down the camera.
Night_control is equiped to make of series of images It is invoked with
night_control - non-interactive snapshoting with CCD camera Usage: night_control [options] exptime1,filter1 [exptime2,filter2] ... -oo output filename mask, default '' -o output prefix name, default 'image' -n number of exposures, default=1 -d dark interval, default: 0 no darks -w wait for specified No. of seconds, integer, default:0 -b binning, default=3 -name object's name -r select region by format: (x1,y1,x2,y2), default: full area -c select chip, I - imaging (default), T - tracking -v view exposed image with gtknightview -t test, only print commands, useful for background processing -host address:port internet address server, default: local connect -obsname observer's name -comment some additional description enclosed in 'apostrophes' -z compress output file -h print help Setting of environment variable NIGHTVIEW_HOST is equivalent to -host option. List of possible filters: 'B' 'V' 'R' 'I' 'clear'
where options are:
-oo output filename mask, default 'image%d%s.fits' -o output prefix name, default 'image' -n number of exposures, default=1 -d dark interval, default: 0 no darks -b binning, default=3 -name object's name -r select region by format: (x1,y1,x2,y2), default: full area -c select chip, I - imaging (default), T - tracking -v view exposed image with gtknightview -t test, only print commands, useful for background processing -host address:port internet address server, default: local connect -obsname observer's name -comment some additional description enclosed in 'apostrophes' -z compress output file -h print help
The night_control is follows the twices of values for an exposure duration and filter for grab the serie of exposures. At least, one twice is required, but a more the one twice can be used. The full set of exposure, filter combinations will be used in one control loop.
All switches are similar to night_exposure utility. The -r, -c, -z, -name, -obsname, -comment has the same meaning as in night_exposure utility. Option -oo correspond to -o for the night_exposure.
The valid parameters are -n, -d, -v, -t. The -n represents number of exposures in series, the script will be make dark frame after specified number of images and subtract its from a scientific images with -d option. It starts before first image. The -v parameters invoke gtknightview for show a current image. The parameters and behaviour on base its can be tested with -t parameter.
Example1: The astronomer wants 100 exposures of PR Del, each 15 second in V filter, low resolution:
night_control -n 100 -name 'PR Del' -o 'prdel%03d%s.fits' 15,V
Example2: The astronomers wonts 100 exposures of PR Del, each 15 seconds on V filter, low-resolution, automatically show image after download, every 20th exposure dark:
night_control -v -n 100 -d 20 -name 'PR Del' -o 'prdel%03d%s.fits' 15,V
Example3: The astronomers wants 100 exposures of PR Del, each 15 seconds in V and 10 seconds in R filter, low-resolution, every 20th exposure dark:
night_control -n 100 -d 20 -name 'PR Del' -o 'prdel%03d%s.fits' 15,V 10,R
Technical note 1. The night_control search all binaries in standard
system directories by default. If you need a run they from some
non-standard place, add your bin directory to the system variable
PATH
. Especially, the binaries night_dark and
night_keylist are required for night_control's correct run.
All shell utilities (night_*) gets information from environmental variables. The command line options replaces the environmental setting in general.
NIGHTVIEW_HOST
variable sets the 'host' option
commonly for all shell utilities. If variable is unset this
variable is defaulted to file:///tmp/.night_shock (local connection).
Example. The command
export NIGHTVIEW_HOST="http://my.camera.net"
will set the host with camera conected to http://my.camera.net.