Astronomical Observation Tools

Astronomical Observation Tools (Astrobs Tools) is composed of:

• SCOPE: a code to get the sky coordinate limits from observation constraints;
• EQUATOR: a software to organize targets before observations;

and the following extractors:

• HPMS: High Proper Motion Stars (Simbad Extractor);
• NGC: New General Catalogue (VizieR Extractor);

Requirements

Astrobs Tools requires Python 3.10 or newer

Setup

First step is to initialize a virtual environment for the software with:

python3 -m venv ./venv

Then install the required packages with:

source activate.sh && pip install -r requirements.txt && deactivate

You may also need to authorize the execution of Astrobs Tools with:

chmod u+x Astrobs-Tools.sh 

Usage

To launch Astrobs tools, simply execute:

./Astrobs-Tools.sh

Then select the desired code

SCOPE

1. Select a location (available location: ObAS, OHP) — default: (last one)
2. Date of observation [YYYY-MM-DD] - default: today
3. Begin time of observation [hh:mm format, UTC] — default: astronomical twilight
4. End time of observation [hh:mm format, UTC] — default: astronomical twilight
5. Minimum altitude above horizon [deg] — default: 50°
6. Minimum declination around the north [deg] — default: 30°
7. Observation window before crossing the meridian [h] — default: 4h
8. Observation window after crossing the meridian [h] - default: 2h

Observation parameters are then printed

• Write output to file [yes/no] — default: no By default, the file is saved in the Output directory, with the name YYYY-MM-DD_Location.cfg

EQUATOR

First, select a configuration file (if none, default is selected). Then, select the action you wish to perform.

Available commands (not case sensitive):

• help, h, ?: show this page
• quit, exit, q: quit the current code (WARNING: this does not save the current state!)
• write, save: write the current table in a file (no options available yet)
• read [filename], open [filename], load [filename]: loads the file "filename" in the current table (no additional options available yet)
• calibration, calib: adds a calibration in the target list
• simbad [object name], object [object name]: add an object from simbad
• search [ra] [dec] [radius], region [ra] [dec] [radius]: search a region centred on the ra/dec coordinates, with a given radius (ra is given in hour, dec in degree and the radius is any specified unit,, e.g. search 01:03:40 35:40:20 30')
• manual [name] -s [seq], add [name] -s [seq]: manually add a target (only the name and the sequence are available for now)
• sequence, seq: computes the sequence order for each target
• check: check if all targets are in the observation field
• plot, graph: creates a graph with all the targets observation date and time

General actions:

• cancel, back: cancels the current action
• yes, y, 1: yes
• no, n, 0, or anything else: no
• all, *: select all
• done, ok: confirm, save the current state and quit

Extractors (HPMS, NGC)

Extractors are small codes to query databases in order to extract a table of potential targets. Using them is often straightforward, and their result is always written in the Output/ directory.