Difference: ZTFOpsCGI04 ( vs. 1)

Making a testing queue for ROS on ZTF.

This tool creates a testing queue for the Robotic Observing System. This is just a list of exposures that the robot will execute in order. If the robot is unable to execute an exposure (e.g. the target is below the horizon), it will be skipped and the next exposure in the file will be executed.

You must use the standard field IDs for this tool. See ZFD.tbl for a list of field IDs and see ZTFFieldGrid for more information on the ZTF field grids. (However, if non-standard field IDs are needed for testing and science validation this set could be expanded.)

The request ID is intended to be a unique integer which makes it easy to link a particular exposure request to a ZTF image file. For testing, it is OK to start with '1', although more unique numbers may be helpful in sorting out the image data (a descriptive comment string may also be helpful).

The following is an excerpt from Reed Riddle's ROS Operations Manual:

• Testing queue system

The testing queue is set up to test the queue interactions with the ROS queue system. It can also be used to execute a list of observations; it does not make any decisions as part of the observing process, it just feeds the target list one at a time to the ROS queue as requested until the observing list is empty.

To use this queue scheduler system, first set the QUEUE_DIRECTORY variable in /home/ztf/Software/Config/queue.cfg file to Test_queue, the name of the directory in /home/ztf/Software/Queue/ that contains the testing queue. Then, generate a target list with each line in the following format:

A1,1,000720,15:06:52.142,+40:33:00.00,2000.0,0.000,0.000,30.0,FILTER_ZTF_R,Shri Kulkarni,none

The elements of this entry (each separated by a comma) are as follows:

• The request ID for this entry, this is an alphanumeric identifier for the observation
• The program ID for the science program being executed
• The field ID for the target coordinates
• The right ascension, in sexagesimal format
• The declination, in sexagesimal format
• The epoch for the coordinates
• The RA rate (in arcsec per hour) for the target coordinates
• The Dec rate (in arcsec per hour) for the coordinates
• The exposure time, in seconds, for the observation
• The filter (using the filter codes above) for the observation
• The science program PI
• A comment about the observation

Note that an entry is required for all parameters, they should not be left empty. It is unlikely that ZTF will ever do non-sidereal observations, but the rates are included in case the need arises in the future.

Once the file is generated, place it into the /home/ztf/Software/Queue/Test_queue directory. There are programs in this directory that match the queue interface definitions above; each program is compiled with g++ PROGRAM_NAME PROGRAM_NAME.cpp. To make the new queue file the active test file, pause the observing system, then copy the file to observations.dat; this will overwrite the current observations.dat file, which is the reason for copying files into place. Restart the observing system and the ROS queue scheduler will select items from the new observing list.

-- TomBarlow - 08 Nov 2017