A&A 454, L25-L28 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20065359

Letter

APECS - the Atacama pathfinder experiment control system

D. Muders¹, H. Hafok¹, F. Wyrowski¹, E. Polehampton^{1, 2}, A. Belloche¹, C. König¹, R. Schaaf^{1, 3}, F. Schuller¹, J. Hatchell^{1, 4} and F. van der Tak<sup>1, 5

1</sup>  Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
    e-mail: dmuders@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de
²  Space Science and Technology Department, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
³  Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁴  School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL, UK
⁵  SRON National Institute for Space Research, Landleven 12, 9747 AD Groningen, The Netherlands

(Received 4 April 2006 / Accepted 3 May 2006 )

Abstract
APECS is the distributed control system of the new Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) telescope located on the Llano de Chajnantor at an altitude of 5107 m in the Atacama desert in northern Chile. APECS is based on Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) software and employs a modern, object-oriented design using the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) as the middleware. New generic device interfaces simplify adding instruments to the control system. The Python based observer command scripting language allows using many existing software libraries and facilitates creating more complex observing modes. A new self-descriptive raw data format (Multi-Beam FITS or MBFITS) has been defined to store the multi-beam, multi-frequency data. APECS provides an online pipeline for initial calibration, observer feedback and a quick-look display. APECS is being used for regular science observations in local and remote mode since August 2005.

Key words: telescopes -- methods: data analysis -- methods: numerical -- astronomical data bases: miscellaneous

© ESO 2006

The OpenURL standard is a protocol for transmission of metadata describing the resource that you wish to access. An OpenURL link contains article metadata and directs it to the OpenURL server of your choice. The OpenURL server can provide access to the resource and also offer complementary services (specific search engine, export of references...). The OpenURL link can be generated by different means.

• If your librarian has set up your subscription with an OpenURL resolver, OpenURL links appear automatically on the abstract pages.
• You can define your own OpenURL resolver with your EDPS Account. In this case your choice will be given priority over that of your library.
• You can use an add-on for your browser (Firefox or I.E.) to display OpenURL links on a page (see http://www.openly.com/openurlref/). You should disable this module if you wish to use the OpenURL server that you or your library have defined.