Re: [TASS] GUI

[Chris Albertson <chrisja@jps.net>]

Aaron Littich wrote:
>
> Another thing, about what you have been talking about the time problems, the GUI program running on the client computer doesn't need to worry about times as much, does it?  Because it just sends a command to the telescope like take an exposure for this amt. of seconds, go to this RA and DEC, close shutter, etc.

I think your words "as much" say it.  Any program sending
a command "point at RA=xxx" needs to know if xxx is visible
given the location of the telescope, the time and the mount's
range of movement.  Knowing the time to the minute may be
good enough.

One thing to consider.  You can assume the Mark IV real-time
computer knows the exact time and if you are sending commands
then by definition you have a network connection to the real-time
computer.  All Linux/UNIX machines will tell you the time of
day if you ask them .I think the protocol is called "rdate".
In addition ,the Mark IV controllers will likely be running
the xntpd NTP time server.  So you can get the correct time
directly from the Mark IV controller if need be.


--
   --Chris Albertson             home: chrisja@jps.net
     Redondo Beach, California   work: calbertson@logicon.com