This is a modified version of a program written by Rick Fisher to create a "automatic" observing program.

The idea behind these routines is simple - you pick the area of the sky you wish to observe that night (east, south, or north) and then feed the program the starting lst, az angle, and zenith angle for your observations. The program will create a file called .exec which is just a series of "dosrc" commands for the telescope. This file should then be sourced once you've started the dataking routines and have set up the correlator.

THE DETAILS

The program input is as follows:

• make____ : This is the makeeast, makenorth, or makesouth command which decides which area of the sky you will be observing. There are also makene, makenw,makese, and makew commands, but they aren't extremely useful. [NOTE - If anyone would like to rewrite this program to deal with the whole issue of wrapping please let me know.]

• <proj> :This is just your project number (i.e. a9999) and it is used both for making the executable file name (a9999.exec) and for knowing the name of your .sls set-up files (assumed to be a9999.sls).

• start_lst(hh:mm) :The is the LST at which your observations will start. You should try to be within a minute or two of the actual start time.

• src.list :This is simply the name of your source list. It can be anything, but needs to be entered in.

• start_az :This is the azimuth angle which the telescope is at when the program starts. If you are inaccurate with this, the program will misidentify the amount of slew time necessary to reach your first source. If you do not enter this, it defaults to 180.0.

• start_za :This is the zenith angle which the telescope is at when the program starts. If you are inaccurate with this, the program will misidentify the amount of slew time necessary to reach your first source. If you do not enter this, it defaults to 10.0.

• No_setups :You may have either one or two set-up (.sls) files for this program. If you have only one .sls file, the program assumes your the file is named, i.e. a9999.sls. If you have two set-up files, the project assumes they are named, i.e. a9999a.sls and a9999b.sls. You tell the program which .sls file to use for a given observation by the target object's priority number -- a priority of 2 selects the "b" set-up file, while all other priorities select the "a" set-up file.

The source list should read as normal, execpt that a priority must be given to each object in the last column, after a comment ("#") symbol. This priority runs from 1 - 6, with 1 being objects of highest priority. If you wish to remove object from consideration, you can either comment them out (by placing a "#" at the beginning of the line) or simply give them a priority greater than 6.

An example source list might look like this :

	126 001344.7 +143625 j 0. # 1
	266 002722.8 +105054 j 0. # 2
	293 002919.8 +262435 j 0. # 3
	M03-03-021 003942.4 211405.9 j 0. # 6
	CGCG457_024 003948.6 211256.8 j 0. # 1
	424 003950.1 +203104 j 0. # 11
	795 011456.3 +122251 b 0. # 1
	1122 013419.6 +291552 j 0. # 1
	2580 031133.4 +064216 b 0. # 3
	U2588 031226.7 +142430 j 0. # 1

The output of the program is a file called "a9999.exec" (or whatever your project number is), which is the file to be sourced in vxworks (see below), and prog_summary, which summarizes what your a9999.exec file is going to do.

To run the program in the gui, just start up the gui as normal. At any point, you can tell the gui to begn your auto observe program by:

• After the "AutoObserve" button, change the type of observations to "vw%'

• Enter the file name (a9999.exec) after the 'File:" button

• Hit "AutoObserve", and watch things happen

• To quit, first hit "AutoObserve". When it is red, hit the "Ctrl-C" button.

Things to think about before using this program:

• You can set the length of time for you obsrvation, as well as the number of loops and the wait time between ON and OFFs, with the spectral line gui. You must be aware, though, that the "make..." program has no means of knowing you did this, and you could readily screw things up. If you do wish to use values other than the "standards" (time on source - 5 minutes, number of loops = 1, and time between on & off source observations = 1 minute), you need to go into the makesched.h file, change the values there, and then re-compile the program before running it. Changing the observation time and wait time is trivial. Changing the number of loops is also trivial, but isn't well tested. If you change things, be sure that the numbers on the widget match the numbers in the makesched.h file!!!

  
  

• If you have two set-up files, the program assumes that you will be switching from one receiver to the next. If this is not the case, you need to reduce the "TURRET_CHANGE_TIME" variable in the makesched.h file, or simply accept that the program won't be perfect.

  
  

• This program isn't perfect. This means it won't always be exactly where it should be at a given time. Hopefully, though, it will never be off by more than a couple minutes.

  
  

• At present, this only accepts coordinates which are in RA & Dec, and in either the J2000 (j) or B1950 (b) epoch.

  
  

• You should pay close attention to "holes" in you observing schedule. It may be worth adding a few extra object, or extra copies of objects, to your source list to eliminate those holes.

  
  

• Please be aware of the fact that things can go wrong while you are observing which the operator may not have any means of noticing. This means that if you use this program and decide not to monitor the incoming data, time lost on the telescope during your inattention is your own fault. You will NOT be given a chance to make up this time.

To download your own tarred, g'zipped set of these programs, click here.

To re-compile the program (you may not need to), just type "make" in the directory with the source code.