Developing a Software Electronic Checklist for the MegaPrime Instrument Procedures

One of the instruments at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope observatory is MegaPrime, a wide-field optical imager that includes the MegaCam, a 340 megapixel camera using state-of-the-art Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) detectors. As good operational practice, rigid procedures are followed and checked off when installing or removing the instrument onto and from the telescope. Engineers currently utilize hard copies of the procedures and manually mark off completed steps in the procedures. A software electronic checklist is being developed to streamline the process. This checklist is based off of an existing checklist for another imaging instrument, but modified to fit MegaPrime's procedures. The program is built using the Tcl/Tk language to read in a text file list of the procedures. This existing checklist's text file has been modified for MegaPrime's installation and removal procedures. Like a paper checklist, each item can be marked off at completion on the program's Graphical User Interface (GUI). Additional comments may also be typed and saved for each procedure. Currently, we are building functions that will connect to MegaPrime's subsystems and controllers. These functions will allow engineers to send commands to the controllers and read system statuses directly from the checklist GUI. In addition, the checklist will be archived for future reference. Utilizing this checklist is expected to improve the efficiency of completing MegaPrime's operations.