TNOOBS

Name

tnoobs

Purpose

Real-time planning and field selection tool for TNO survey observations.

Description

This is a non-blocking widget tool. It expects to read a file with
a list of field coordinates. Here's a few lines from a file with the
correct format (not including lead semi-colon):
F09711 18 28 48.0 -22 04 27.1 2000.0 0.0 0.0
F09767 18 36 0.0 -17 46 52.9 2000.0 0.0 0.0
F09775 18 36 0.0 -22 34 52.9 2000.0 0.0 0.0
F09850 18 45 36.0 -17 01 31.7 2000.0 0.0 0.0
The first field is the name of the field. Next is ra, dec, and epoch.
The parser expects white space between each field. Colons or commas
imbedded in the coordinates won't work. This file format happens to be
what is expected by the CTIO telescope system. You can load this file
using the "Open" option under the "File" menu.
There is a second file that is written as you tag fields with their
observation date and time. This file is named 'fieldobs.dat' and is
written to the directory where you where when you start this program.
This file records the start times of the two visits to the field.
You must provide the y/m/d as well as h:m:s in the time field. Here
are a few example lines from observed fields:
F09711 2000/07/28 23:48:45 2000/07/29 02:38:50
F09767 2000/07/28 23:41:58 2000/07/29 02:33:09
F09775 2000/07/28 23:33:50
F09850 2000/07/28 23:55:46 2000/07/29 02:45:07
If a field is not present, it hasn't yet been observed. If a field has
only been observed once you'll only see one time (like F09775 above).
Because the tool is non-blocking, you can continue to use IDL normally
from the command line while this tool is running. But, only one
copy of this tool is permitted at any given time.

Calling Sequence

tnoobs

Inputs

Optional Input Parameters

Keyword Input Parameters

AMCRIT - Airmass limit, default=2.5
DT - Offset from true time in hours (default=0), this is used
mostly for testing.
OBSFILE - Name of the file containing the observatory code information.
Default is obscode.dat. !PATH is scanned to find this file.
OBSCODE - Observatory id code, default is '688' (Lowell Observatory)

Outputs

Keyword Output Parameters

Common Blocks

Side Effects

Restrictions

Only one instance at a time is allowed.

Procedure

Modification History

Written by Marc W. Buie, Lowell Observatory, 2000/07/30
2000/03/16, David Tucker, changed obsfile to support new rdobscod
2001/04/18, MWB, changed systime call.
2002/09/03, MWB, changed Str_sep call to strsplit
2002/09/09, MWB, added support for string obscode values