Observing control and data reduction at the UKIRT

For the past seven years observing with the major instruments at the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT) has been semi-automated, using ASCII files to configure the instruments and then sequence a series of exposures and telescope movements to acquire the data. For one instrument automatic data reduction completes the cycle. The emergence of recent software technologies has suggested an evolution of this successful system to provide a friendlier and more powerful interface to observing at UKIRT, The Observatory Reduction and Acquisition Control (ORAC) project is now underway to construct this system. A key aim of ORAC is to allow a more complete description of the observing programme, including the target sources and the recipe that will be used to provide online data reduction. Remote observation preparation and submission will also be supported. In parallel the observatory control system will be upgraded to use these descriptions for more automatic observing, whilst retaining the "classical" interactive observing mode. The final component of the project is an improved automatic data reduction system, allowing on-line reduction of data at the telescope whilst retaining the flexibility to cope with changing observing techniques and instruments. The user will also automatically be provided with the scripts used far the real-time reduction to help provide post-observing data reduction support. The overall project goal is to improve the scientific productivity of the telescope, but it should also reduce the overall ongoing support requirements, and has the eventual goal of supporting the use of queue-scheduled observing.