LBT Observing Planning Tools
Updated: 2013 Mar 04
This page provides access to LBT observing planning tools including
target visiblity and parallactic angle calculators, script generation,
checking, and visualization tools.
- Target Calculators:
- Target Visibility Calculator
- Parallactic Angle Calculator
- Differential Atmospheric Refraction Calculator
- Target Visualization & Guide Star Selection:
- modsView - MODS Target Visualization & Guide Star Selection [v1.4.1, 2013 Mar 19]
- luciView - LUCI Target Visualization & Guide Star Selection [v1.0, 2013 Mar 20 - First Non-Beta Release!]
- Observing Script Generation and Verification:
- modsTools - MODS Observing Script Preparation Tools [v1.3, 2013 Jan 20]
- luciTools - LUCI Script Checking and Preparation Tools [Updated: 2013 Jan 29]
This is a work in progress, more tools are on the way...
For a given date, compute the hourly circumstances for your target as
viewed from the LBT on Mt. Graham. From evening to dawn twilight, for
each hour of local time it computes the hour angle, airmass, parallactic
angle, Sun and Moon altitude, Object-Moon angle, fractional lunar
illumination, lunar component of sky brightness at the source, and the
julian date. The calculation includes a plot of elevation versus time
for the target, and a summary of lunar conditions at midnight.
An Example Calculation (opens in new window/tab).
Based on John
Thorstensen's skycalc program. Note that John's JSkyCalc program can be very helpful for visualizing your
time-and-the-sky constraints; the executable jar file can be downloaded
from John's webpage (JSkyCalc.jar - 520k executable Jar file). Note that JSkyCalc is
also installed on the LBT observing workstations for use on the
mountain.
Calculates the parallactic angle, elevation, airmass, and
along-parallactic slit position angles of a target for a range of hour
angles.
MODS does not have an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC), so
orientation of the slit at or near the parallactic angle is essential in
order to mitigate slit losses due to atmospheric dispersion, especially
at the UV end of the MODS blue channel.
Calculates a table of differential atmospheric refraction for a target
for wavelengths of 350-950nm over a range of hour angles and choice of
slit position angle, width, and AGw guide camera filter, and generates a
plot of the atmospheric dispersion track relative to the slit.
Updated: 2021 Feb 1 [rwp/osu]