Apogee

The Apogee Instruments Inc. scientific CCD cameras now have a driver available for their entire range of products. This driver is accompanied by a full GUI interface that has been specifically designed for use in an astronomical environment. To install the driver, the .tgz binary can be installed with the commands cd / tar -xvzPf /path-to-archive/apogee-driver-1.5.tgz /opt/apogee/apogee-post /opt/apogee/modinstall.

It should be noted that the camera driver needs to be prepared (per-user) before use. To do this, log in with the username that you will be using to operate the camera, open an xterm and type /opt/apogee/install. You will be prompted for the type of camera and I/O port. If the .ini file for your camera is not listed, you may need to obtain the latest version from Apogee. Alternatively, you can examine the new .ini file format and edit your current .ini file to conform to the same parameter names. Once the driver is set up, the GUI interface can be initiated with the command ~/startapogee.

Some key features of the Apogee software include: support for all ALTA-E and ALTA-U models, support for parallel port and PCI, and ISA interface models, full-frame, binned, and sub-region readout, image read/write to FITS format disk files, in memory buffering of an arbitrary number of images, automatic image display using DS9 image viewer, calibration image library construction, on-the-fly calibration, drift-scan mode, focus frame readout, graphical user interface to major functions, Tcl level scripting interface to all aspects of the driver, Tcl level scripting interface to image buffer management, and Tcl level scripting interface to manage FITS images, tables, headers.

In the latest release of the Apogee driver, support for ApnCamData_CCD models has been added, and the codebase has been updated for 2.0.43_57 changes. Overall, the Apogee software appears to be a comprehensive and sophisticated solution for users of scientific CCD cameras.