HP ACC2 Aurora User manual

UNIS/UIO CAMERA

ACC2

Aurora camera control

program

USER's MANUAL

Version 2.1

Last updated: 2/7/02

Bjørn Lybekk, Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Norway

UPDATES:

Jan 15. 1999:

Added point 9) in «Chapter 16 Possible errors». The addition was made due to problems with the HP SureStore T4 backup

device. (Espen)

Jan 23. 1999:

UNIS/UiO camera no2 updated with Network Time Server, replacing GPS time. Changes are mainly reflected in Chapter 13.

(Espen)

Jan 23. 1999:

Handwritten notes (by Bjørn?)in the previous manuals Chapter 2, about scaling, is added. (Espen)

Jan 24. 1999:

A simple Y2K test was performed. The automatic time update was switched off, and the computers date and time was set to

1999.12.31 23:50:00. The Acc program was then run for 20 minutes. There was no indication that the new century will

cause any problem to this computer!

Document Version number upgraded to 2.1.(Espen)

This file is: C:\ACC\DOC\ACC2_USER.DOC (on Camera PC 2)

TABLE OF CONTENT:

UPDATES:.................................................................................................................................................................2

TABLE OF CONTENT: .................................................................................................................................................3

CHAPTER 1 PRECAUTIONS: ........................................................................................................................................4

CHAPTER 2 STARTING THE CAMERA:..........................................................................................................................5

CHAPTER 3 STOPPING THE CAMERA:..........................................................................................................................7

CHAPTER 4 OVERVIEW OF THE ACC PROGRAM:...........................................................................................................8

CHAPTER 5 THE ACC2 CONTROL FILES: ....................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER 6 IMAGE FILE NAMES:...............................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER 7 THE IMAGE FORMAT: .............................................................................................................................16

CHAPTER 8 COPYING IMAGES TO A NETWORK DISK:.................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 9 CONFIGURATION FILE:...........................................................................................................................19

CHAPTER 10 SAVING DATA AT DAT STORAGE MEDIA:................................................................................................22

CHAPTER 11 SAVING DATA AT PINNACLE APEX 2 X 2GB OPTICAL DISK:.....................................................................23

CHAPTER 12 USING THE HP SURE STORE T4i STREAMER: ..........................................................................................24

CHAPTER 13 AUTOMATIC UPDATE OF PC CLOCK:.......................................................................................................26

CHAPTER 14 CAMERA SETUP:...................................................................................................................................28

CHAPTER 15 FOCUSING:..........................................................................................................................................30

CHAPTER 16 POSSIBLE ERRORS: ..............................................................................................................................32

CHAPTER 1 PRECAUTIONS:

•The camera contains a light sensitive image intensifier and

is easily damaged by to much light. It has to be operated in

darkness.

•When mounting / removing the camera the shorting plug must

immediately be added to the backside of the camera, when the

thick cable to the camera is removed.

•The user should read the first 7 pages (i.e. until hardware

overview) of the document : "All-Sky Imaging System for

University of Oslo", Keo Consultants, 12/5/95.

•The PC clock is automatically updated every 5 minutes by the

Norwegian Polar Research Institutes Network Time Server. The

Tardis95 program must be running in the background. The

program starts automatically when Windows starts, and a icon

is shown on the toolbar. The ACC2 program has also support

for a GPS clock. If the Garmin GPS 12XL Receiver is used the

date and time is received from this device. If not the date

and time is captured from the PC clock. If either the Network

Time Server or the GPS receiver is available, the PC clock

must manually be corrected to UTC time every day.

•The data is stored at x:\data\images directory. This

directory must exist, (x: is d: at the Unis/UiO camera no 1.)

CHAPTER 2 STARTING THE CAMERA:

Turn on the PC.

(If the Garmin GPS 12 XL Receiver is used: Turn the receiver

on, (the small red button with a drawing of a light bulb).) The

Network Time Server is the preferred time source.

Shut down all light in the camera hut.

Remove the lens cover at the camera unit.

Turn on the power on the backside of the camera, and on the

camera control unit.

On the PC, start the PMIS program. Verify the RS-232

communication with the "User->COMOPEN 1" , (Press User in the

menubar, and the parameter is 1) . If the camera does not

answer with "HOME:1" restart the computer.

Then when "User->COMOPEN 1" replies with "HOME:1" the

communication with the camera is working.

Close the communication with "User->COMCLOSE"

Close the two windows: SI 512 camera and the one with 8x16 icon

buttons.

In the PMIS Window:

Image -> NewImage

A new black image window appears.

Press the ACC2 icon. Now the ACC2 window appears.

The UT time is shown in upper right corner of the ACC2 window.

It should show UT and have the format:

yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss

Mark: It is important that the time has exactly this format,

not . or , instead of the - and : ‘s.

If necessary (and the Garmin GPS 12XL receiver is not used)

correct the time with the Windows95 Control Panel Date/Time.

In the ACC window: Press OpenCom

Then when the "HOME:1" shows up in the PMIS window

press the Start button in the ACC2 window.

Now if the run file, the timer file and the sequence file

are correct, the camera should operate. If the current

time is within a start and stop time in the sequence file, the

sequence is executed.

The default is to use dynamic scaling of the data. The operator

can set the scaling to «fixed».

In the Image_1 window:

Display -> Scaling

¤Fixed Min/Max 0 1500 (is useful settings.)

This settings do not affect the data saved to disk. The

datarange is 12 bit. The operator can move the cursor around in

the image. In the lower left corner of the Image_1 window is

displayed:

X .# Y .# I .#

I is the data value [0 - 4095].

The name of the data files are diplayed in the Aurora Camera

Control window:

e.g. 06:50:50 File name: C:\data\images\981215\06\98121506.33G

The extention 33 is a hex number (starts on 00 every hour) and

G indicates that this image is taken with a green filter (R

indicates red filter).

CHAPTER 3 STOPPING THE CAMERA:

In the ACC window.

Press the Stop button and the Exit button.

Press the upper right cross to terminate the PMIS program.

Answer No to save the image and No to save the Program state .

Turn off the power at the backside of the camera unit

and the camera control unit.

Put the lens cover on the camera unit.

Shut off the Garmin GPS 12XL receiver by pressing the red

button for about 3 seconds. (If wanted the Garmin GPS 12XL

receiver can run all the time during the observation season.)

(If necessary do the move the recorded image files to tape or

optical diskette, see below).

Shut down Windows 95 and turn off the PC power.

CHAPTER 4 OVERVIEW OF THE ACC PROGRAM:

Figure 1: Overview of the camera computer system. The Garmin

GPS receiver is optional. By the time, a Network Time Server is

used instead of the GPS. The Time Server communicates via the

LAN.

ACC 2

Visual Basic 5

PMIS ver.. 3.5

SMARTMR

DDE

Dynamic

Data

Exchange

RS-232

COM1:

RS-232

COM2:

Photmetrics

CH200

CCD camera

Smartmtr

electronics

RUN file

SEQUENCE file

TIMER file

I/O from

AT200

PC board

Garmin GPS

receiver

The filter wheel, the intensifier and the shutter is

controlled by the SMARTMTR program. The SMARTMTR

program in use is called Norway.prg. The CCD camera is

controlled by the PMIS program. The PMIS program also

cover the RS-232 communication (thin cable) to the

SMARTMTR program. This is done via the RS-232 COM1: port.

When inspecting the camera system the operator should also

watch the PMIS window.

The ACC2 program is a Visual Basic 5 program. It communicate

with the PMIS program. The task of the ACC2 program is

to determine the times the camera should operate and what

it should do when it operates.

VisualBasic(ACC2)--> PMIS(macros)--> SMARTMTR(Norway.prg)

The information from the ACC2 program is written in the

upper text panel in the ACC2 window. Every line starts with the

time when the message is written. The last line written in the

ACC2 text panel is the top line.

The highly unstable PC clock is corrected by the Garmin GPS

12XL receiver. This is done via a RS-232 cable on the COM2:

port. The messages from the part of the program handling the

GPS interface is shown in the lower text panel in the ACC2

window. The program checks every other minute if the PC clock

should be corrected. The communication to the GPS receiver is

handled by Visual Basic Communication control , MSComm .

The communication between the ACC2 program and the PMIS program

is handled with DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) protocol. The

middle text panel in the ACC2 window is used as a DDE

communication buffer.

CHAPTER 5 THE ACC2 CONTROL FILES:

The control files for the ACC2 program is located at the

C:\acc\seq directory. The ACC2 program uses 3 control files:

The run file, the timer file and the sequence file.

The operator should write these three files. The recommended

editor is the Windows 95 notepad program. EDIT in DOS can also

be used. The format of the control files has to be DOS ASCII.

(MARK: Then do not use Word, Word Pad etc. ..)

1) The run file:

-----------------

The run file is named RUN.ACC .

The RUN.ACC file contains 1 executable line.

Lines starting with # in first column are comment lines.

When the first line in the RUN.ACC line has the content:

RUN <filename>

The <filename> is the full path of the timer file the camera

should run.

Example:

RUN c:\acc\seq\timer_2.fil

2) The TIMER file:

--------------------

The current timer file is the filename after the RUN in run

file. In the Example above the current timer file is named

"timer_2.fil" in c:\acc\seq\ directory. It is recommended the

operator uses DOS compatible file names when he creates new

timer files.

The timer file defines the intervals when the camera

should run.

The timer file has the format:

start yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss stop yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss <filename>

The <filename> is the full path of a sequence file.

Note: The sequence file name can be different at

different lines in the timer file.

Example:

start 1997-11-12 06:36:30 stop 1997-11-12 22:38:00 c:\acc\seq\test_a.seq

start 1997-11-13 06:36:30 stop 1997-11-13 22:38:00 c:\acc\seq\test_b.seq

start 1997-11-14 06:36:30 stop 1997-11-14 22:38:00 c:\acc\seq\test_a.seq

Table of contents

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