In order to carry out observations which have been scheduled with the standard version of TAO your observatory needs to be controllable by one of the following two sets of programs:

• ACP/PinPoint/MaxIm DL CCD. In this case you will run the MU image acquisition script (which is part of TAO) under ACP, and the scheduler output will consist of a target list containing all the information about the telescope actions to be carried out during the observing run. This target list will be read and executed by the MU script at the scheduled time. ACP will distribute commands to the telescope (which may be controlled by another program such as TheSky) and the CCD camera (which is controlled by MaxIm DL CCD). PinPoint is required for certain image manipulations, including the automated astrometric reduction of images intended for correction of the telescope pointing (which is not necessary on telescopes which point well). In order to use the automatic focusing capability included in MU, you will need to use the program FocusMax in conjunction with a focuser which can be controlled by FocusMax. The focuser needs to be of the absolute kind, that is, it must be possible to move it to any chosen position specified on a numeric scale. If you wish to save images in zipped format (which saves bandwidth when remote telescope users download their images), you will need to install pkZip, including its command-line version. Version requirements: ACP V3, PinPoint 3 or later, MaxIm DL CCD 3.09 or later, FocusMax 2.2.0 or later.

• TheSky/CCDSoft/Orchestrate. In this case the scheduler output will consist of a collection of text files, each containing a short Orchestrate script which will carry out one observation (essentially slewing the telescope to the target and taking the image with the appropriate camera settings). Orchestrate will distribute commands to TheSky (which controls the telescope) and CCDSoft (which controls the CCD camera). Version requirements: TheSky v. 5 or later, CCDSoft v. 4 or later, Orchestrate v. 1 or later.