A transputer based system for real-time processing of CCD astronomical images

A complete transputer based, real-time system has been developed to manage the whole chain of operations from acquisition of CCD images to quick-look, both in on-site observations and in remote observations. The system is able to read a CCD image, display it on a local monitor and/or lossy-compress the data sending it to a remote station for quick-look. Display and compression are performed by a transputer network. The former operation is managed by a graphic transputer module, whilst the compression, based on a fast DCT algorithm, is managed by a network of transputers organized on a geometric or farming parallel architecture. The system is open to further developments to perform on-line image calibration and interactive image analysis (histograms, ...).