ics_agActor - ICS Actor for the Auto Guider

Overview

The ics_agActor is a critical component of the Instrument Control System (ICS) for the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS). It serves as the control actor for the Auto Guider (AG) system, which is responsible for maintaining accurate telescope pointing during observations.

This actor interfaces with the AG Camera Controller (ics_agccActor), the Subaru Gen2 observation control system, and other components to provide automated guiding functionality for the PFS instrument.

Features

• Field Acquisition: Identifies and acquires guide stars in the field of view
• Auto-Guiding: Maintains accurate telescope pointing during observations
• Guide Star Selection: Integrates with the GAIA star catalog for guide star selection. Note that most guide stars come directly from the PfsConfig files.
• Astrometry: Performs astrometric calculations for accurate pointing. Note that this module is not frequently used and may be removed in the future.
• Telescope Control: Calculates and applies pointing corrections
• Database Integration: Stores and retrieves observation data from the operational database

Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.12 or higher
• Dependencies listed in pyproject.toml

EUPS Installation with LSST Stack

This package uses the Extended Unix Product System (EUPS) for dependency management and environment setup, which is part of the LSST Science Pipelines software stack. The LSST stack is a comprehensive framework for astronomical data processing that provides powerful tools for image processing, astrometry, and data management.

1. Ensure you have the LSST stack installed on your system. If not, follow the installation instructions at the LSST Science Pipelines documentation.

2. Once the LSST stack is set up, declare and setup this package using EUPS:

   eups declare -r /path/to/ics_agActor ics_agActor git
   setup -r /path/to/ics_agActor
   

3. The package's EUPS table file (ups/ics_agActor.table) will automatically set up the required dependencies within the LSST stack environment:

   • ics_actorkeys
   • ics_utils
   • pfs_instdata
   • pfs_utils

Standard Setup

Alternatively, you can install the package using pip:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Subaru-PFS/ics_agActor.git
   

2. Install the package:

   cd ics_agActor
   pip install -e .
   

Usage

The actor is typically started as a service in the PFS ICS environment using the sdss-actorcore tools.

Project Structure

• python/agActor/: Main source code
  • main.py: Actor entry point and core functionality
  • autoguide.py: Auto-guiding implementation
  • field_acquisition.py: Field acquisition functionality
  • Commands/: Command handlers for actor commands
  • Controllers/: Hardware controllers
  • catalog/: Star catalog integration
    • astrometry.py: Astrometric calculations
    • gen2_gaia.py: GAIA catalog interface
    • pfs_design.py: PFS design file handling
  • coordinates/: Coordinate transformations
    • FieldAcquisitionAndFocusing.py: Field acquisition and focusing utilities
    • Subaru_POPT2_PFS_AG.py: Subaru telescope coordinate transformations
  • models/: System component models
    • agcc.py: AG Camera Controller model
    • gen2.py: Gen2 system model
    • mlp1.py: MLP1 model
  • utils/: Utility functions
    • actorCalls.py: Actor communication utilities
    • data.py: Data handling utilities
    • focus.py: Focus-related utilities
    • logging.py: Logging utilities
    • math.py: Mathematical utilities
    • opdb.py: Operational database interface
    • telescope_center.py: Telescope centering utilities

Dependencies

• astropy: Astronomical calculations
• fitsio: FITS file handling
• numpy: Numerical computations
• psycopg2-binary: PostgreSQL database connector
• sdss-opscore: SDSS operations core framework
• sdss-actorcore: SDSS actor framework
• pfs-utils: PFS utilities

Development

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Submit a pull request

Versioning

This project follows semantic versioning. See the CHANGELOG.md for version history and recent changes.

License

This project is part of the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) project and is subject to the licensing terms of the PFS collaboration.

Contact

For questions or issues related to this software, please contact the PFS software team or create an issue in the repository.