UCO/Lick Observatory
Scientific Programming Group
|
UCO/Lick Observatory
|
|
The UCO/Lick Observatory SPG writes software in support of engineering and optical R&D, telescope and instrument operation, observing, and data reduction.
Founding member Bob Kibrick joined Lick Observatory in the 1970s followed by De Clarke in the early 1980s, then Dean Tucker and Steve Allen in 1989. Will Deich came on board in 1996. John Gates joined in 1999 and updated telescope pointing code. Marc Reinig joined in 2004 to support the Laboratory for Adaptive Optics at the Center for Adaptive Optics. Kyle Lanclos joined in 2008. Aaron Hunter joined in 2022.
The group provides all levels of software support. This ranges from chip-level DSP programming and embedded code for Galil motion controllers to high-level GUIs and image reduction tools for end users (astronomers).
We have built software for controlling telescopes and instruments deployed at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton in California. We built software for figuring the Keck secondary mirror and the camera optics for many other Keck instruments, the HIRES, ESI and DEIMOS spectrographs, the Keck-1 atmospheric dispersion compensator, the LRIS red detector upgrade, the KCWI red and blue detectors, the Keck-1 Deployable Tertiary Mirror, the Keck Planet Finder, all deployed at Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. We provide ongoing software support for these instruments at both observatories. We provide software for operating various equipment in UCO/Lick laboratories. We consult on the design of software for future instruments.