The US Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) has asked Observatory Sciences to produce software that is capable of controlling a huge solar telescope.
The Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) will have a 4m diameter primary mirror and be sited at an altitude of 10,000ft on the summit of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
Observatory Sciences will produce the ATST Telescope Control System software.
This will provide multi-axis motion control of the servo drives in the telescope mount, which requires monitoring changes in atmospheric temperature, pressure and humidity, to accurately set the altitude and azimuth of the telescope to observe the Sun.
ATST's 4m primary mirror will feed an advanced array of instruments designed to study the Sun at wavelengths from near ultraviolet into the far infrared.
High-order adaptive optics techniques, developed by the NSO, will correct blurring of solar images caused by Earth's atmosphere.
This is claimed to allow scientists to observe features in the solar atmosphere with unprecedented sharpness, down to structures only a few tens of kilometres in size.
It is designed to allow precise measurements of solar magnetic fields, particularly under circumstances where they have been previously invisible, allowing us to understand and predict solar variability.
The Telescope Control System will be responsible for the control of the telescope's positioning and image quality.
It will operate a number of associated telescope subsystems and will utilise the ATST Common Services software, which provides a framework for the development and deployment of ATST software throughout the observatory.
