Since XmCCD uses Motif, the libraries and include files must be available.
Imakefile should find them and create a suitable makefile for your system.
If Motif is not included in your Linux system, you will need to install
it first.  See

http://www.lesstif.org/

for Lesstif which is GNU Public Licensed and works well with XmCCD.
  

Untar the file xmccd-#.#.tar .  By default it will create a directory 
xmccd-#.# with the command

  tar -xvf xmccd-#.#.tar
  

Set your current working directory to xmccd-#.#

  cd xmccd-#.#
  

Note that libsbigudrv4.0.a is in the source directory.  Should you update the 
library, copy the new version to this directory and modify the Imakefile 
for the new name.  The library name should be in the same form, beginning
with "lib".

By default the camera is assumed to be connected to port 0x378. 
This is the hardware address for the single parallel port on most
newer Intel-based PC's with one parallel port.  Before compiling,
if a different port is needed, change the line in xmccd.c setting
the value for the port variable:

int port = 0x378;            /* camera connected to this port */


Create a Makefile from Imakefile 

  xmkmf 
  

Build xmccd

  make
  

Once the program has compiled properly, it must be run `SUID' root, since
it requires access to the kernel.  As root user,  issue these commands

chown root.root xmccd
chmod u+s xmccd

to set the permissions.  For "ls -l" you should see something like this

-rwsr-xr-x    1 root     root       281883 Mar 10 01:08 xmccd

Move xmccd to a directory in your search path such as /usr/local/bin 

  mv xmccd /usr/local/bin    
  

xmccd will use ds9 for image display if it is present.  The complete
distribution for SAOds9 is available from

http://hea-www.harvard.edu/RD/ds9/

Install it from their distribution.  If you build it from source, the
result will include the XPA binaries as well.  Should you download the 
binaries instead of building from source, also obtain binaries for
XPA and install them.  XPA provides the communication between ds9
and XmCCD.


Start the program with the command line 

  xmccd
  
The program will accept the standard Motif options to change geometry
and title.  It is not yet sensitive to an app-defaults file. It will
spawn ds9, and make a connection to the camera if it is available.

ds9 will attempt to display track.fits and image.fits, the default
image and track ccd files.  These files should be present in the
working directory from which you start XmCCD.  If not, they will be
created when you take an exposure.  The files created by default will have
root ownership, but if you have them present already with user ownership,
they will retain it.  This is generally convenient, so it is advisable
to set aside a directory from which you will run xmccd and in which
the image files will be kept.

Once an image is aquired and visible in ds9, you should save it with the
ds9 file menu to whatever name you prefer.  Each subsequent exposure will
overwrite the previous image.fits and track.fits files. Future versions
may provide for archiving image files serially in a backup directory, but
for now this has to be done by the user for each exposure.  The image
fits header contains only minimal file information, and a separate observing
log should be maintained if date, time, exposure, or object coordinates
are needed.

The library routines may disrupt the system clock.  It is advisable to
install and run an ntp daemon to keep the clock synchronized with 
coordinated universal time.

This version of XmCCD has been tested only with an ST-8 camera,
a CFW-8 filter wheel, and a Meade 16-inch LX200 telescope (for the
guiding interface).  If you experience problems with other parallel
port SBIG cameras, please send comments to kielkopf@louisville.edu.

XmCCD will attempt to take tracking exposures during a long image
exposure.  Since it takes a few seconds to download and display a
tracking CCD image, this is useful only for imaging exposures greater
than about 10 seconds.  The tracking image will be updated in the ds9 display
during the longer image exposure, and may be used with the control panel
for manual guiding.

Future versions of XmCCD will automate the guiding process, and implement a
selection for feedback to the telescope drive system or to the SBIG AO-7
adaptive optical device.

A version of XmCCD that uses the SBIG ethernet interface will also be made 
available once we have tested the hardware.

Have fun.  Let us know if there are features we could add that would make
this software more useful for you.


John Kielkopf (kielkopf@louisville.edu)
March 9, 2002








  
