TUI

Displays the current status of the Dual Imaging Spectrograph (DIS) and allows you to change the configuration. Normally only the most common status is displayed and the configuration controls are hidden. Various buttons show additional information. Information is displayed in the order light takes going through the instrument (except that the shutter is just behind the mask).

CCD coordinates are always binned. 1,1 is the lower left pixel and 2048,1028 is the upper right pixel when binned 1x1.

Pushing the "Config" button displays configuration controls (each to the right of its corresponding item of status). Select TUI:Save Window Positions to remember the state of this checkbutton.

• Controls with a colored background will be changed when you hit Apply.
• The contextual menu on each control can return that control to the current setting of the instrument.

Basic items (always shown) are as follows:

• Shutter: open or closed.
• Mask: the current slit mask.
• Filter: the current filter set.
• Turret: current position of the grating turret. The two positions for changing gratings are shown in the warning color because the instrument cannot be used in that configuration.
• Camera-specific items. The following items have separate entries for the blue and red cameras. They are grating-specific and will be blank if the turret is not at one of the two grating sets.
  • Grating: name of the current grating.
  • Dispersion: dispersion of the current grating (Ångströms/pixel).
  • λ (lambda): central wavelength of the current grating (Ångströms).

Pushing the CCD button shows the following image-specific items. Note that these cannot be set separately for the blue and red cameras.

• Bin: binning factor
• Window (aka subframe): portion of the data that is read and saved (the overscan is also saved; see next item). Specified as the lower left corner (min x,y) and the upper right corner (max x,y) of the data, inclusive, in binned pixels.
• Overscan: additional unbinned pixels that are read beyond the imaging area of the CCD and saved to the image file. The X overscan region is a good bias overscan. The edge pixels can have artifacts, so the FITS header card for the bias section ("BIASSEC") is the X overscan region inset by two pixels from each edge.

  

Pushing the Details button displays additional items. Most of these will only be of interest to observing specialists and engineers.

• Detent: the commanded position of the grating turret detent. This is occasionally useful for diagnosing turret rotation problems: if detent gets hung up on the rim of the turret then the next turret move may show a huge decrease in the detent position.
• Camera-specific items; the first two will be blank if the turret is not at one of the two grating sets:
  • Zero Tilt: tilt (in steps) of the grating at which the central wavelength is zero. This is a configuration parameter used to calibrate grating tilt.
  • Position: current tilt of the grating (steps).
  • Temp: measured CCD temperature (C).
  • Heater: CCD heater current (% of max current).

Presets allows you to save and restore named configurations. This is only visible if Config is checked.

• Use Presets:Edit:Save to save the state of the configuration controls as a named preset. Note that it saves the state of the controls, not the actual state of the instrument, so you can save any preset you like without commanding the instrument.
• The Presets:Edit menu also allows to rename and delete saved presets.
• Select a named preset to set the configuration controls to that preset. Then change any controls you like and press Apply to apply.
• Presets are saved in a file whose location is given in TUI:About TUI.

Below the items is a status bar that shows help and the state of the currently executing configuration command.

The buttons along the bottom are as follows:

• Expose...: opens the separate DIS Expose window.
• Config: show or hide the configuration controls.

  The following are only available if the configuration controls are showing:

• Apply: apply the requested changes by sending a series of commands to DIS.
• X: cancel your pending configuration changes. The current command is allowed to finish, but any subsequent commands are flushed.
• Current: reset all configuration widgets to the current state of the instrument.

This describes the exposure window used by each instrument (the graphical interface for the hub's expose command). Details differ for each instrument, but the basics are identical. To open the expose window for a given instrument, bring up that instrument's main window, then press the Expose... button along the bottom.

Sound cues

An "Exposure Begins" sound cue is played as each exposure begins, or at most once every 30 seconds (to avoid aural overload for sequences of short exposures). An "Exposure Ends" sound cue is played for most instruments (not for Agile because the end of one Agile exposure is the beginning of the next). You may choose alternate sound cues in Preferences:Sounds.

Exposure Status

The top panel shows the status of the current exposure sequence (regardless of who started it).

• Seq Status: information about the current sequence
• Exp Status: information about the current exposure
• User: who started the current sequence; if its your sequence then the text says "Me"; if it's a collaborator (somebody logged in with the same program name as you) then the next indicates that.
• File: the file name for the current exposure, or the most recent exposure if not exposing. For instruments with more than one camera (e.g. DIS) there is a separate line for each camera.
• Comment: the user's comment, if any. Note: as I write this TUI has no way of getting this information from the hub; until that is fixed this line will remain blank.

Exposure Controls

The bottom portion shows the input and command widgets:

• Download: exposure download preferences. Note that these preferences only apply to this one camera. To change the global preferences for all cameras press More...
  • Every: controls which images are downloaded.
    • 0 = no download
    • 1 = download every image
    • N = download every Nth image
    • -1 = download current images; if TUI can't keep up (e.g. slow bandwidth) then some images are skipped.
  • View Image: controls whether to display downloaded images in ds9. Disabled if Every is 0 (no downloads).
  • More...: shows the global exposure preferences, including extras such as the download directory (Save To). Remember that global preferences apply to all cameras, and remember that you must press Save or Apply for changes to global preferences to have any effect.
• Object, Flat, Dark, Bias: the type of exposure. Some instruments (e.g. NICFPS and TripleSpec) do not support all of these types.
• Time: the length of the exposure, in seconds, min:sec or hrs:min:sec, depending on how many colons you enter.
• #Exp: the number of exposures to take in this sequence.
• Cameras: (only present for instruments such as DIS that have more than one camera). The camera(s) from which to save images. At least one camera must be specified.
• File Name: the name of the your file. The name is relative to your program's directory and the file number and extension are automatically added. For example if the file name is "mysubdir/test" and the file number is 27 then the next image will be your program's directory/mysubdir/test.0027.fits. A leading slash will be ignored; files are always placed in your program's directory.
• Comment: an optional comment about the exposures. This information is saved to the FITS header (truncated if necessary) and displayed to other users.

The penultimate line is the status bar; as usual it shows replies to any commands you personally start, as well as help and error messages if you try to enter something invalid.

And the command buttons take their appointed place along the bottom:

• Start: start the exposure sequence.
• Pause: pause the current exposure (if one is being taken) or exposure sequence. The button then changes to Resume.
• Pause Seq: finish the current exposure normally, then pause the sequence. The button then changes to Resume Seq. This button only appears if the instrument does not support pausing an exposure.
• Stop: halt the current exposure immediately and save the current image. No more exposures are taken.
• Stop Seq: finish the exposure normally, then stop the exposure sequence. This button only appears if the instrument does not support stopping an exposure early.
• Abort: halt the current exposure immediately and discard the image. No more exposures are taken.
• Config...: opens the window that displays and allows you to change the instrument configuration.

  Note:

• You are allowed to pause, stop or halt any collaborator's exposures. Please use with caution!