DFM was chosen to produce the telescope because of their proven track record of delivering high performance quality telescopes and prompt delivery. The telescope was custom designed to fit within the new observatory building already under construction when the telescope was ordered.

The telescope includes a customized Guide-Acquire-Module (GAM) that supports a (6) position filter wheel using 50-mm square filters and an Apogee AP47p CCD camera. DFM is providing the integrated system including the filter wheel with filters, the CCD camera and its mount, and software to control the camera and filter wheel.

The Telescope Control System (TCS) uses our new MS Windows based software that we introduced at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Winter Meeting in Washington, DC. and further demonstrated at the AAS summer meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The WinTCS™ allows integrating third party astronomy software with the telescope control software in a single control computer producing a stunning Graphical User Interface (GUI). The third party software allows the telescope user to take advantage of the many years of astronomy software development by companies such as Software Bisque (TheSky™ and their internet remote software programs), and Diffraction Limited (MaxIm DL/CCD) to provide a large data base GUI and control of filter wheels and CCD cameras.

A new feature of the DFM Engineering WinTCS™ is an enhanced GUI to the pointing model. Now the pointing model coefficients and position error graphs are simultaneously displayed. Changing the pointing model coefficients causes the position error graphs to change in real time while the R.A. and Declination RMS errors are summarized. When the new model coefficients have been determined, they may be easily uploaded into the TCS pointing model file.

The new pointing model system highly simplifies reducing the position error data to determine new pointing model coefficients. This increase in efficiency allows modeling the pointing of DFM telescopes to even higher levels than before.