ASTCOL

Name

astcol

Purpose

Collect astrometry observations for multiple objects

Description

This program takes care of assigning a unique code to moving target
astrometric observations. But, there may already be a cross-reference
file for some observations. These are applied at the same time.
The current directory is scanned for all files ending in .ast. These
are the raw astrometry files. Second, a file name lplast.xrft is
sought. This file will contain cross-references between the raw
ids implied by the raw astrometry files and some other unique
designation. Anything that does not have an entry in the
cross-reference file needs a final code which is optionally
generated by this program. If you request file codes, another
file is consulted, newobj.dat in the SAVEDIR directory, and a unique
id is generated and added to the lplast.xrft file.
The newobj.dat file is searched for the first properly formatted line.
This object code of this is used as a template for further codes.
An object code consists of one or more alphabetic characters followed
by up to five numeric digits. Usually, there are two leading
alphabetic characters but this program doesn't mind finding more.
If there is one only alphabetic character then the limit is 99999
object codes in the file. If you have two or more alphabetic
characters, the last digit of these will be used as an additional
sequence character starting at 'A' (regardless of what may already
be in the file). This increases the limit to 2,600,000 (less 26,
0 is not used).
Once all the cross-referencing and code assignment is complete, a series
of files is written to SAVEDIR. YYMMDD is the date which is generated
from the name of the current directory, usually meant to be the UT date
of observation (but is not required, any name will do)
SAVEDIR/YYMMDD.ast - astrometry file (my format)
SAVEDIR/YYMMDD.ted - astrometry file (Ted Bowell format)
SAVEDIR/YYMMDD.kted - astrometry file of slow moving objects (Bowell)
SAVEDIR/YYMMDD.info - summary listing of all objects in ast/ted file
SAVEDIR/YYMMDD.kinfo - summary list of all objects in kted file.
Note that the objects are placed into the ast and ted files in order of
increasing rate of motion. Also note that generating final codes can
be hard to undo so only do it if you are absolutely sure you are ready.

Calling Sequence

astcol

Inputs

Optional Input Parameters

Keyword Input Parameters

ALLTNO - Flag, if set will alter the list of objects sent to the kinfo,
and kted files. With the flag, a query is done against the
des.dclass table to find a list of currently known TNOs. To
this list is also added any slow moving object that is at a
solar elongation of 150 degrees or greater. These slow
moving objects are NOT incorporated into the .ted file.
DES - Flag, if set will alter the list of objects sent to the kinfo,
and kted files. Without the flag, the files contain slow
moving objects. With the flag, a query is done against the
des.vclass table to find a list of interesting objects. To
this list is also added any slow moving object that is at a
solar elongation of 150 degrees or greater. These slow
moving objects are NOT incorporated into the .ted file.
If neither of the flags above are specified, the .ted and .info files
contain everything and no .kted and .kinfo files are created. These
secondary files are intended to carry the TNOs of interest and suppress
them in the primary output files. It is allowed to have just one or both
of these keywords.
NONEWCODE - Flag, if set suppresses the generation of new object id codes.
NOXREF - Flag, if set will not use available cross-reference information.
OBSCODE - Observatory code for observations, default='688' (Lowell Obs.)
THIS IS IMPORTANT! So much so that it probably should not
be a keyword input parameter.
SAVEDIR - Directory where final astrometry is to be placed. The default
value is /net/frakir/raid/buie/astrometry
NODB - Flag, if set will suppress saving new codes to des.newobj database.
This flag has no effect if not setting final codes.
REPOST - Flag, if set will check to make sure the localid code is present
in the des.newobj database. If it is not found, it will be
(re)posted to the database. NODB will override this keyword.
You must also enable final codes to be able to repost the data.

Outputs

Keyword Output Parameters

Common Blocks

Side Effects

Restrictions

DO NOT SET SAVEDIR TO BE THE SAME AS THE CURRENT DIRECTORY!!!
This program reads all the .ast files in the current directory and then
writes files to SAVEDIR among which is one file with a .ast suffix. This
output file is NOT the same format as the input .ast files. If you
accidentally make this mistake, then the SECOND time you run astcol,
it will pick up the output file and become very unhappy.

Procedure

Modification History

1997/03/18 - Written by Marc W. Buie, Lowell Observatory
1997/07/09 - Added the savedir keyword
1997/07/25, MWB, slight change to the Bowell file format output.
1998/06/22, MWB, added call to ASTLIST at end, also newcodes are taken from
first available number, not last code in file.
1998/11/04, MWB, now filters out magnitudes fainter than 80.0
2000/03/09, MWB, moved creation of .ted file to ast2ted.pro
2000/09/20, MWB, changed to support vectors with repwrite.
2002/09/09, MWB, added support for string obscode values
2003/05/02, MWB, added NOXREF keyword
2003/08/15, MWB, added NODB keyword and database storage to des.newobj
2004/02/09, MWB, changed SAVEDIR default path
2004/02/27, MWB, changed the codetag algorithm to extend the sequence
2004/07/24, MWB, added the DES flag
2004/9/21, MWB, removed obsolete call to Findfile
2005/03/31, MWB, added REPOST keyword
2005/10/12, MWB, fixed bug that prevented saving slow moving objects to a
separate file if the mysql-based list was empty
2005/11/28, MWB, added code to make SAVEDIR if it doesn't exist but only
if the user requests that the program try to make it.
2013/09/16, MWB, added ALLTNO keyword