Taking Measurements

To take DIMM measurements you must first enter the information of the star that you will be observing, meaning the star's name and its coordinates. If you don't know the exact coordinates, enter only the star's name, and we will find its coordinates, but it would generally help us if you fill the coordinates yourself. Keep in mind that you MUST enter the star's name, before you can start taking measurments. After entering the information needed, it's time to press the "Take DIMM Measurements" button. Only two things are left for you to enter, for the program to run properly.The first thing is the ambient temperature, meaning the temperature of the environment. We need this value for the program to regulate the chip temperature low enough to take measurements. Accepted values are from -20 to +40 Celsius. After you have entered the temperature you must wait until the camera's temperature regulates. A dialog box will appear. If you entered a wrong temperature in the previous step and the camera cannot reach the setpoint, you can correct it here. If you enter nothing, every time you press OK or Cancel you can see how many degrees are left to reach setpoint in the main body of the program. When the setpoint is reached then the next time you press OK you will continue to the next step.

The second thing is the time you want to observe. Here you must enter from 30 min to 10 hours. We have entered this limitation because measurements below 30 min will not be statistically correct. Information boxes will appear, before the actual measurements begin, to tell you what exactly is done with your camera. Nothing else needs to be entered for the program to take DIMM measurements. Trough the whole procedure you can see exactly what the program is doing and how many time is left to complete the run. If you want to run the program again you don't have to close and restart, just press the "Take measurments" button once more.