MCDONALD OBSERVATORY / DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY COMPUTING


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West Texas Computing

Mt. Locke computer support is provided by Darren Crook at the mountain (under the Assistant Superintendent for Observing Support, Earl Green) and all relevant Austin computing team staff listed above. Sam Odoms and Ron Leck, who are based in Austin, serve as software developers for instrumentation in west Texas. Ben Laws is the primary contact for resources at the Hobby*Eberly Telescope on Mt. Fowlkes. If you have questions involving resources located in west Texas, it is suggested that you first speak with Anita Cochran or Chris Wilkinson.
The following machines are located at Mount Locke and are frequently used for data acquisition and instrument control. All mount a local version of /opt/local, providing users with access to the same reduction and analysis software available in Austin.
  1. oberon — Sun Ultra 45. Solaris 2.10. This system is the primary workstation used by observers at the 2.7m. It provides access to the 2.7m instrument control computers, atlas and colossus, and allows for quick-look data reduction. It also serves as an instrument control computer for the TK3 and TK4 CCD systems. It has three 20- inch displays, supports high and low density Exabyte 8mm tape drives, and has a 4mm DAT drive.

  2. atlas — Sun SparcStation 10. Solaris 2.6. Retired but available on special request. This system was used for instrument control of the older CCD systems at the 2.7m. It has 27 GB of disk space and supports high and low density Exabyte 8mm tape drives. It can be operated remotely from oberon.

  3. charon — Sun Ultra 5. Solaris 2.8. This system provides a secondary workstation in the 2.7m control room. It provides a mirror of Austin's dust:/opt/local, which supplies the latest Solaris versions of all reduction and analysis software to all other Solaris systems on Mt. Locke.

  4. colossus — PC. Red Hat Linux. Located in the 2.7m old cass control room, it serves as the high-level interface to the 2.7m control system. It can be operated remotely from oberon.

  5. nereid — Sun Ultra 10. Solaris 2.8. This system is the primary workstation used by observers at the 2.1m. It is the instrument control computer for the TK-4 CCD systems and allows for quick-look data reduction. It also provides access to older CCD systems through miranda. It has two 20-inch displays and 130 GB of disk space.

  6. miranda — Sun SparcStation 10. Solaris 2.6. This provides instrument control of the older CCD systems at the 2.1m. It has 10 GB of disk space and supports an Exabyte 8mm tape drive. It is typically operated remotely from nereid.

  7. dione — Sun SparcStation 5. Solaris 2.8. This system is still used by observers at the 0.9m for checking PC- TCS pointing and filling out night reports. It does not support CCD operation at the 0.9m. In addition to providing a Solaris desktop environment and 2.5 GB of disk space, it also supports an 8mm Exabyte tape drive.

  8. luna — Sun Ultra 10. Solaris 2.8. This system is the primary workstation used by observers at the 0.8m. It provides access to the instrument control computer, titan, and allows for quick-look data reduction. It has two 20-inch displays, 130 GB of disk space, a 4mm DAT drive, and an 8mm Exabyte tape drive.

  9. titan — Sun Ultra 2. Solaris 2.6. This system provides instrument control of the PFC at the 0.8m. It has 80 GB of disk space, a 4mm DAT drive, and an 8mm Exabyte tape drive. It is typically operated remotely from luna, although it can serve as a secondary workstation.

  10. prometheus — PC. Red Hat Linux. Hosts the telescope control system, including pointing and guider software.

  11. media107 — Dell. Linux. This system is located in the 2.7m control room, and can be used to burn CDs and DVDs.




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26 April 2010
McDonald Observatory · The University of Texas at Austin · Austin, Texas 78712
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