Common API for telescopes.

Uses EthanChappel/Alpyca classes for ASCOM Alpaca API.

 git clone https://github.com/araucaria-project/ocaboxapi.git
 pip install -e ocaboxapi

Observatory configuration is kept in YAML configuration files. The configuration files are read one after one, and latter overwrites former. The configuration is expected to be found in the following locations:

              <package_path>/ocaboxapi/default.cfg.yaml
              ~/ocabox.cfg.yaml
              ./ocabox.cfg.yaml

See the ocaboxapi/default.cfg.yaml for the example.

The top level is the configuration preset name. Preset may include another preset(s). (See how in ocabox/default.cfg.yaml preset default includes concrete one).

Each preset contains single observatory keyword, which is also the root of device tree.

Each key in the components section represents sys_id of the component. The only obligatory key for component is kind, which can be (at the moment) one of:

• telescope
• dome
• camera
• filterwheel
• focuser
• rotator
• switch
• safetymonitor

Observatory structure - devices tree is defined in YAML configuration file(s) (see above). Children can be accessed by their sys_id as a parent's attributes or via Component.children dictionary. Parent component is stored in Component.parent attribute.

All the commands, and properties of actual telescope driver are available as methods of specific device class.

E.g.

from ocaboxapi import Observatory

observatory = Observatory()

observatory.connect('default')

tel = observatory.my_telescope  # sys_id "my_telescope" is a key in config file

tel.slewtocoordinates(11.4, -52.239)
tel.park()

All device's methods have docstrings accessible with Python's built-in help() function.

For additional documentation see /doc directory.