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Session 74 - Ground-Based Instruments.
Display session, Wednesday, January 17
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center

[74.08] WinTICS-24 --- A Telescope Control Interface for MS Windows

R. L. Hawkins (Whitin Obs., Wellesley C.)

WinTICS-24 is a telescope control system interface and observing assistant written in Visual Basic for MS Windows. It provides the ability to control a telescope and up to 3 other instruments via the serial ports on an IBM-PC compatible computer, all from one consistent user interface. In addition to telescope control, WinTICS contains an observing logbook, trouble log (which can automatically email its entries to a responsible person), lunar phase display, object database (which allows the observer to type in the name of an object and automatically slew to it), a time of minimum calculator for eclipsing binary stars, and an interface to the Guide CD-ROM for bringing up finder charts of the current telescope coordinates. Currently WinTICS supports control of DFM telescopes, but is easily adaptable to other telescopes and instrumentation.

Program listing for Wednesday