  The ATLAS BPTX stations are comprised of electrostatic button pick-up
detectors, located 175 m away along the beam pipe on both sides of ATLAS. The
pick-ups are installed as a part of the LHC beam instrumentation and used by
ATLAS for timing purposes. The signals from the ATLAS BPTX detectors are used
both in the trigger system and for a stand-alone monitoring system for the LHC
beams and timing signals. The monitoring software measures the phase between
collisions and clock with high accuracy in order to guarantee a stable phase
relationship for optimal signal sampling in the sub-detector front-end
electronics. It also measures the properties of the individual bunches and the
structure of the beams. In this paper, the BPTX monitoring software is
described, its algorithms explained and a few example monitoring displays
shown. In addition, results from the monitoring system during the first period
of single beam running in September 2008 are presented.
