Hyper-Suprime Cam Status Monitor
Status monitoring tool for the Hyper-Suprime Cam instrument system for the Subaru Telescope
Overview
The Hyper-Suprime Cam (HSC) is a large mosaic CCD imager instrument for the Subaru Telescope. It is one of the main instruments for the organization's observatory. However, operating and monitoring the instrument during observations is difficult for astronomers because of its command-line interface and the need for manual inspection. The HSC Status Monitor's goal is to provide astronomers with a GUI-based tool that centralizes the monitoring information and improves their workflow during night observations.
Results
The HSC Status Monitor was developed for the organizaiton using Python. The tool's interface was developed with Tkinter. Because of the instrument system's remote location on the summit of Mauna Kea, the monitoring tool is accessed through SSH over X11 forwarding. The tool centralizes the monitoring information including logs, read-out status, shutter status, filter status, and observational data. The HSC Status Monitor also centralizes several pre-existing tools by including a "Launch Tools" tab for astronomers to easily access them. The "Launch Tools" tab eliminates the need to individually open every tool in a new terminal.