Automatization of the guiding process in the GTC

The "Gran Telescopio Canarias" (GTC) is an optical-infrared 10-meter segmented mirror telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) observatory in Canary Islands (Spain). The GTC Control System (GCS) is continuously evolving to enhance the operational efficiency. In this work we present the new GCS subsystem to automatize the guiding setup process, both for Fast Guiding and for Slow Guiding. A set of restrictions (including vignetting and photometric computations) is used to select the stars appropriate for guiding, and a merit function is used to choose the best one. Then, the system computes the optical configuration that fits best the selected star, automatically performs the guide star acquisition process and it closes the guide loop.