The operational and control software of Multi-channel Antarctic Solar Telescope
Ya-qi Chen, Ming-hao Jia, Guang-yu Zhang, Zhi-yue Wang, Yi-ling Xu, Yi, Feng, Jie Chen, Hong-fei Zhang, Peng Jiang, Tuo Ji, Jian Wang

TL;DR
This paper details the development of an autonomous control system for China's Multi-channel Antarctic Solar Telescope, integrating hardware control, observation planning, and sun tracking to enable efficient solar observations in Antarctica.
Contribution
It introduces a comprehensive control architecture using EPICS and RTS2, with modules for hardware management, autonomous operation, and user interface for the first solar telescope in Antarctica.
Findings
Successful integration of EPICS with RTS2 for autonomous control
Implementation of sun tracking via centroid calculation and correction
Development of a user-friendly GUI for remote operation
Abstract
MARST (Multi-channel Antarctic Solar Telescope) aims to observe the Sun in multiple wavebands in Antarctica and will be China's first solar telescope in Antarctica. The telescope has two tubes, corresponding to Photosphere observation which uses 11 filters and Chromosphere observation in H{\alpha} waveband. The two tubes need to be coordinated to observe at the same time. The telescope will observe the Sun for a long time, so a self-guiding module is needed to improve sun tracking. Besides, performing solar specific flat-field exposure is necessary for analyzing. EPICS is introduced to control each hardware and an autonomous observation system based on RTS2 is designed under such demands. EPICS application modules are implemented for each device: telescope mount & focuser, filter wheel, H{\alpha} filter, dome with webcams, Andor CCD and PI CCD. We also integrate EPICS modules into RTS2…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAdaptive optics and wavefront sensing · Astronomy and Astrophysical Research · Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation
