about.html

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title: About
permalink: /about/
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<section>
    <h3>About pyobs</h3>
    <p>
        pyobs is an <i>observation control system</i> (OCS) for astronomical telescopes and enables them to be operated
        remotely and fully autonomously. Its main functionality is not to act as a hardware driver for all the devices
        used at an observatory (although it can be), but to provide an abstraction layer over existing drivers and a
        means of communication between different devices (called <i>modules</i> in pyobs). In addition, non-hardware
        related modules are available for automating the boring stuff (focusing, acquisition, guiding, etc.).
    </p>
    <p>
        pyobs is written in <a href="http://www.python.org/">Python</a>, but could easily be extended using other
        programming languages. The only requirement is the support for XMPP, the underlying protocol for communication,
        for which libraries are available for all major languages. The advantage of Python is the availability of
        outstanding packages like <a href="https://numpy.org">NumPy</a> and especially
        <a href="https://www.astropy.org">AstroPy</a> and its affiliated packages.
    </p>
</section>

<section>
    <h3>pyobs-core packages</h3>
    <p>
        The pyobs-core package (or just pyobs) contains all the gritty code about, e.g., communicating between modules,
        definining common interfaces and error handling. It also has modules for automating procedures -- going
        as far as providing a full robotic system that works well with the open-source
        <a href="https://github.com/observatorycontrolsystem/observation-portal">observing portal</a> from
        <a href="https://lco.global">Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO)</a>.
    </p>
    <p>
        Details about the pyobs-core package can be found in the <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/">documentation</a>.
    </p>
</section>

<section>
    <h3>Additional packages</h3>
    <p>
        One thing the pyobs-core package does not contain are modules for specific hardware like cameras. Therefore,
        additional packages are available.
    </p>
    <h5>Cameras</h5>
    <p>This is the list of currently supported camera types.</p>
    <ul>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-asi/en/latest/">Aravis (pyobs-aravis)</a>,
            tested on TIS 23GP031
        </li>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-asi/en/latest/">ASI ZWO (pyobs-asi)</a>,
            tested on ASI 071 MC
        </li>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-fli/en/latest/">FLI (pyobs-fli)</a>,
            tested on ProLine 230
        </li>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-sbig/en/latest/">SBIG (pyobs-sbig)</a>,
            tested on STF-402M, STXL-6303, and STF-8300M
        </li>
    </ul>
    <h5>ASCOM Alpaca</h5>
    <p>
        <a href="https://ascom-standards.org">ASCOM</a> is the de-facto standard for accessing astronomical hardware in
        Windows. Alpaca is a proxy that allows using it via HTTP commands.
    </p>
    <ul>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-alpaca/en/latest/">pyobs-alpaca</a>
        </li>
    </ul>
    <h5>Graphical user interface</h5>
    <p>
        pyobs also provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that automatically detects connected modules and
        shows controls for them.
    </p>
    <ul>
        <li>
            <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-gui/en/latest/">pyobs-gui</a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</section>

<section>
    <h3>Affiliated packages</h3>
    <p>
        There are also some packages that are not part of a the pyobs OCS, but which provide vital parts of an
        observatory and which can easily be accessed using modules in the pyobs-core package.
    </p>
    <h5>Weather monitor</h5>
    <p>
        <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-weather/en/latest/">pyobs-weather</a> is mainly a web page
        that displays weather data from several sources. Behind the scene it is fully configurable to which sources
        to use and it also provides functionality to classify a situation as "good weather" or "bad weather", which
        can easily be retrieved from a pyobs module.
    </p>
    <h5>Image archive</h5>
    <p>
        <a href="https://docs.pyobs.org/projects/pyobs-archive/en/latest/">pyobs-archive</a> provides a web page
        for searching and downloading images taken by the OCS. The pyobs-core package contains classes for doing this
        as well as uploading new images.
    </p>
</section>