Planning your Night
This should help you plan your night of variable star
observing.
1) login on galileo.
2) copy the current list of stars to your account. It is in
priority order, 1-N where 1 is highest and N is lowest prority. The
RA and DEC (epoch 2000) are apparent. It may be handy to print out
this file.
- cp /home/galileo/layden/PLAN/stars.prio .
- lpr stars.prio
3) run the planning command file.
- source /home/galileo/layden/PLAN/plan.com
4) the program begins by deleting all the files it generated the
last time you ran it:
- deletes *_* (eg, SW_And)
- deletes *.dat (eg, super.dat)
- deletes *.scr (eg, mongo.src)
5) then it asks you for tonight's date (specifically, the date on
your watch at sunset, not UT date), in Month Day Year format
(eg 6 19 1999).
6) and the length of observations (how long it will take to
observe a typical star) in minutes:
15
7) and frequency of observations (how many observations of that
star per hour): 0.67
8) and the maximum airmass:
1.6
9) and the filename to read:
stars.prio
10) the program is done. You can plot up your plan using
SuperMongo (aka, SM) and print it out:
- in your xterm window, type:
sm
- in the sm window, read in the macro:
macro read mongo.scr (you can
cut/paste this from the program's output).
- in the sm window, run the macro:
plot
11) the plot may look something like this.
- the X-axis is Sidereal Time (there is an ST clock on the
telescope control monitor),
- the Y-axis lists the stars from top to bottom in order of
priority,
- the plot on bottom is an extension of the top plot, note the
overlap in ST,
- ST runs from 0.5 hours before Astronomical Dusk Twilight
(marked by vertical line in top plot),
- through 0.5 hours after Astronomical Dawn Twilight (marked by
vertical line in bottom plot),
- for a given star, at a given ST, a dash (-) means the star is
below the horizon,
- while an aserisk (*) means it is above the horizon but below
your airmass cutoff,
- an open star means the star is
above your airmass cutoff, ie you may
observe it,
- and a filled star means the star
is observable and, if your observing is going according to
the plan so far, it is recommended
that you observe this star next.
- in general, at a given ST, chose the
highest priority star available, provided it has not been observed
in the last 30-45 min.
12) you can print a hardcopy of the plot on the warmroom's laser
writer.
- in the sm window, type: dev
postscript
- then: plot
- and: dev x11
13) HINT: while observing, after you finish the observation set
for a star, place a mark on the plot at the ST. In the event that you
deviate from your plan (lose time to clouds or equipment failure, or
even if you observe faster or slower than the default 15 min per
object) you can revise your plan "on the fly". Just revert to the
Rule in Red in Step 11.
Updated 1999 June 09