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Australia Telescope: Parkes Telescope
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Parkes Schedule File Creator: Position Switching
To refresh the screen using the default entries, press SHIFT and click
the 'reload' button simultaneously.
This output should be saved on your local computer (.sch) and then uploaded to the Parkes
system upon your arrival.
The project number assigned to your proposal.
Example: P345
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Initials or short name of the observer(s).
Example: ZOZ
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Select a correlator configuration from the menu. Only a few are listed and if yours is not
listed, select NULL and enter it once you arrive at the observatory. A full list of supported
modes is available from the Parkes
Correlator Guide.
DFB3/DFB4 configurations with "tb" indicate time-binning modes. For these, the number of time bins
(set on the TCS GUI) must be at least 4 and at most 32. As an example, if you want 1 second sampling
with sdfb3_tb16_16_8192, you would set the number of time-bins to 16.
Other DFB3/DFB4 configurations are "spectrometer" modes and require a cycle-time at least 4s
and the number of time-bins set to 1.
Example: sdfb3_64_1024
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Select the number of seconds per correlator cycle. If using the Multibeam Correlator, the
default is 5 seconds per integration. If using DFB3 or DFB4, the cycle time depends on the
configuration, (especially if you are using a time binning mode) but must be at least 4s.
Example: 5
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The reciever and centre frequency of your observations. If Doppler tracking is enabled, the frequency
here will be interpreted as the rest frequency of the observed line. If Doppler tracking
is disabled the frequency here would be the actual observing frequency (sky frequency).
Make sure your frequency is within these limits (in MHz):
| H-OH | 1090 | 2000 |
| MULTI | 1250 | 1550 |
| GALILEO | 2000 | 3000 |
| 10CM (1050CM package) | 2500 | 3700 |
| METHMB | 5800 | 7000 |
| MARS | 7900 | 9100 |
| KU-BAND | 12000 | 15000 |
| 13MM | 16000 | 26000 |
Example: 1420.405
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Enable/disable Doppler tracking. Note that this only adjusts the
centre frequency, it does NOT continuously track the Doppler shift during
an observation.
Example: disabled
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The reference frame of the source,
LSR-KINEMATIC, LSR-DYNAMIC, Barycentric or Topocentric.
For Galactic work, LSR-KINEMATIC is more commonly used than LSR-DYNAMIC. For Extra-Galacitc work,
either TOPOCENTRIC or BARYCENTRIC are used.
* Note: If Doppler tracking is disabled and no radio velocity is
specified (also recommended) then you must adjust your sky frequency to account for
the velocity of both the source (LSR or barycentric) and the velocity of the observatory relative
to the rest frame. An online tool is available
Frequency Calculator
to calculate this adjustment.
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Integration time on your source in seconds for each individual
track. The corresponding reference (OFF) track will be observed
with the same integration time. Don't make this value too large (say
larger than a couple of minutes) as the sky conditions may change
while you are on source.
Example: 60
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Number of seconds to average spectra over before writing to disk.
Default is no averaging (1s). However, for high data rates averaging
is recommended.
Example: 1
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Two different patterns to are provided: The symmetric pattern
will perform observations as OFF-ON-ON-OFF while the
non-symmetric pattern will alternate between the the ON and the
OFF position like OFF-ON-OFF-ON... The symmetric pattern has
the advantage of reducing driving times, whereas the OFF integration
of the non-symmetric pattern can be chosen to be toward the same patch
of sky as the ON position. For the latter you may provide the
reference position relative to the ON (see below) by selecting an RA
offset of the reference position equal to the negative of the
integration time.
Note it is possible to disable this by selecting the "disabled" option. The
schedule only only contain ON positions.
Example: symmetric
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Total duration of the observing pattern in minutes. This 'total time'
does not include driving times. This number determines the number of ON-OFF pairs.
For example, if you wish to observe ON-source for 240 seconds, to observe
the ON/OFF positions once (regardless of the pattern chosen),
you would enter 8 minutes. To obtain four ON/OFFs, enter 16 minutes and so on.
Example: 15
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The coordinate system of your coordinates. You may choose between
equatorial (J2000 or B1950) or Galactic coordinates. Please take care
of the format: Equatorial, RA: hh:mm:ss DEC: dd:mm:ss, Galactic
GLON: ddd.xxxxx GLAT: dd.xxxxx. It is your responsibility to
input the coordinates in the right format.
Example: J2000
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The location of the ON position relative to the source coordinates.
Generally not used.
Example: RA: 00:02:00
DEC: -00:10:00
will shift the target position 2 time minutes to the east and 10
arcseconds to the south.
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The position
of the reference (OFF) integration. You may choose between relative and
absolute positioning. The relative position refers to the position you
provided for the the source coordinates. Alternatively, you may
provide an absolute position for the OFF integration. Depending on the
coordinate system you choose, the coordinates must be given in
sexagesimal or decimal format.
Example: absolute
RA: 12:33:15.3
DEC: -72:54:04.8
Example: relative
RA: 00:00:00.0
DEC: -00:15:00 (offset of -15 arcmin in dec)
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Specify your source list here, one per line. Format is Name, RA/GLONG, DEC/GLAT
and VELOCITY. For coordinates, ensure you select the appropriate Coordinate system above. If
using doppler tracking (i.e., your velocities are non-zero), ensure you set the correct frame above.
Note that radial velocity information provided here will be ignored if Doppler tracking is disabled.
Example: AG356.48+0.19 17:36:13.8088 -31:49:06.713 -50
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Original: Juergen Ott (11-July-2005)
Modfied: Kate Brooks (10-Mar-2009)
Adapted for Parkes: Stacy Mader (17-July 2009)