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CALIBRATE procedure

Before starting to observe astronomical targets, the CALIBRATE procedure should be carried out. It is extremely important not to skip this, since the efficiency of object acquisition with UES depends critically on the telescope pointing, much more so than with the Cassegrain instruments.

The CALIBRATE procedure is described in general terms in the telescope manual. The procedure with UES differs from carrried out at Cassegrain, in that instead of centring stars on the field-viewing TV, stars should be centred on the coarse guide probe, with the guide probe positioned at the rotator centre with the ICL command UPROBEVIEW. The autoguider window corresponding to the coarse guide probe should be read out continuously, whilst each star is centred using the TCS handset.

The commands to do this are as follows. Commands with the ICL prompt are issued from the system computer, commands with the TCS prompt are issued from the Telescope Control System, and commands with the A&G prompt are issued from autoguider VME system.