The readout and control system of the dark energy camera

K. Honscheid, A. Elliott, J. Annis, M. Bonati, E. Buckley-Geer, F. Castander, L. DaCosta, A. Fausti, I. Karliner, S. Kuhlmann, E. Neilsen, K. Patton, K. Reil, A. Roodman, J. Thaler, S. Serrano, M. Soares Santos, E. Suchyta

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) is a new 520 Mega Pixel CCD camera with a 3 square degree field of view designed for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). DES is a high precision, multi-bandpass, photometric survey of 5000 square degrees of the southern sky. DECam is currently being installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-m telescope at the Cerro-Tololo International Observatory (CTIO). In this paper we describe SISPI, the data acquisition and control system of the Dark Energy Camera. SISPI is implemented as a distributed multi-processor system with a software architecture based on the Client-Server and Publish-Subscribe design patterns. The underlying message passing protocol is based on PYRO, a powerful distributed object technology system written entirely in Python. A distributed shared variable system was added to support exchange of telemetry data and other information between different components of the system. We discuss the SISPI infrastructure software, the image pipeline, the observer console and user interface architecture, image quality monitoring, the instrument control system, and the observation strategy tool.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSoftware and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy II
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
EventSoftware and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy II - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: Jul 1 2012Jul 4 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume8451
ISSN (Print)0277-786X

Conference

ConferenceSoftware and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy II
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityAmsterdam
Period07/1/1207/4/12

Keywords

  • Blanco
  • CTIO
  • Camera
  • Control system
  • DECam
  • Dark energy survey
  • Data acquisition
  • Survey

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