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Observer's hardware

When you arrive at the control room of the telescope, you will be confronted with a series of displays (figure 4.1). You will mainly need to be aware of

• The observer's VDU. Observing is controlled from there. You issue the commands that control the spectrograph, A&G box and detector, once they have been configured (after physically changing gratings and collimators).

• The MIMIC display (figure 4.2) is a schematic picture of the A&G box and the spectrograph, showing the status of all relevant components. It is a very useful mnemonic, as tracing down the light path you will encounter everything that matters between the Cassegrain primary aperture and the detector.

  

• The LEXIDATA display and joystick box. This is where you see the data. The joystick controls the cursor. The switches on the box are used to select alternatives and initiate actions in some graphics programs.