In addition to using DSS images, you can use a FITS image of the field provided it has a valid world coordinate system (WCS) with a precise astrometric solution in its image header.
luciView will also draw the slit if using one of the LUCI facility long-slit masks, or it can draw multi-object mask slits if given the LMS file with the --lms option. At present the long-slit masks are drawn as a single 230-arcsec long slit (we don't show the 3 segments on the 1.5 and 2.0-arcsec slit masks).
The primary use of luciView is to validate target acquisition scripts (.acq or .img files). It tests the guide star to determine if it is within the guide patrol field, issues a warning if the star is inside the science field or the vignetting avoidance region, and then repeats these tests at each offset position requested following the preset. This makes sure that the guide star is valid for all target acquisition steps, especially critical for blind offsets.
While luciView is most often used to examine existing LUCI acquisition scripts, it can provide users with a list of candidate guide stars, allowing for simple non-graphical selection of a guide star. This facility has proven superior to the lbtView program that we will entirely phase out lbtView in June 2013 to concentrate on development of Python-based tools like luciView.
luciView and its companion program modsView are designed to help LBT users, on-site observers, and LBTO support astronomers validate LUCI and MODS target acquisition scripts before attempting execution, and to help fix problems after the fact (i.e., after someone uploads an unverified acquisition script, or edits one on the fly). Copies of luciView and modsView are installed on the LBTO mountain-top observing computers.
This webpage describes how to download, install, and use luciView. Clicking on the screenshots will show a full-size version of the figure.
You need to have the SAOImage DS9 display program and X Public Access (XPA) packages installed on your system:
You also need to install the pyds9 Python module on your system:
See the Release Notes for what is new in the current version of luciView. If you are a Mac OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) user, also read the Notes for Mountain Lion.
Before you can use luciView, you must have DS9, the xpa tools, and pyds9 installed and tested on your system. To see if pyds9 has been installed in your local Python, type:
% python Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Dec 7 2011, 20:48:22) [GCC 4.4.6 20110731 (Red Hat 4.4.6-3)] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import ds9 >>>If it returns any errors with the last command, (e.g., "ImportError: No module named ds9"), then pyds9 is not installed (or you have a Python path to locally-installed modules defined incorrectly),
Usage: luciView [options] luciScript [fitsFile]
Where:
luciScript is a LUCI .acq or .img script
fitsFile optional: use this FITS image with a WCS instead of DSS
Options:
--lms lmsFile overlay slits from an LMS multi-object mask file
--size s change the size of the image to s arcmin (default: 12 arcmin)
--finder create a PNG finder chart
--minmag x specify the catalog faint magnitude limit (default: 16.5)
--maxmag x specify the catalog bright magnitude limit (default: 11.0)
--find Search for candidate guide stars and allow basic selection
--cat catID use catalog catID, options: nomad, ub1 or ua2 (default: nomad)
--nocat do not overlay catalog stars
--grid overlay celestial coordinate grid (default: no grid)
--rotate rotate to fixed-LUCI orientation (default: N=up/E=left)
--noalign do not align the DSS image to N=up/E=left (default: align)
--keepcat do not delete star catalog working files (default: delete catalogs)
--server x image server to use, must be one of dssstsci or dsseso (default: dssstsci)
--survey x sky survey to use, must be valid for server
defaults: dssstsci=all, dsseso=DSS2-Red
--nolabel do not label the image with TARGET_NAME
--nodisp only print the analysis and quit without displaying in ds9
--noflip do not flip in X (orients N=up/E=left)
--kill kill any delinquent/hidden luciView ds9 window and exit
-V print version info and exit
See the ds9 manual for server/survey options
Each of these options are described in the following sections.
luciView ngc5387.acqThis will launch a custom DS9 window, retrieve an image of the field from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) server at STScI, and then
Before making the plot, it prints a summary of the targeting and instrument configuration (camera and slit mask) and verifies that your guide star is inside guide patrol field at the selected instrument rotator angle. For example:
% luciView grb123456.acq
LUCI .acq Script: grb123456.acq
Summary:
Object: GRB123456
Coords: 08:15:01.35 +36:46:34.66
Rotator PA: 10.7 deg
Guide Star: 08:15:13.30 +36:50:08.90
Camera: N1.8
Slit Mask: LS1.00_600um (ID990034)
Filter: H
Exposure: 3x10.0 sec
Relative RADEC Offset(s):
Offset 1: dRA=-5.00 dDec=5.00 arcsec
Offset 2: dRA=5.00 dDec=-5.00 arcsec
Final Position: dRA=0.00 dDec=0.00 arcsec
Guide Star Check:
The guide star is inside the LUCI guide patrol field.
Guide star inside the patrol field after Offset 1
Guide star inside the patrol field after Offset 2
Displaying LUCI sky view:
Downloading the image from the dssstsci image server...
Plotting NOMAD1 catalog stars with their R magnitudes...
Magnitude Range: 16.5 < R < 11.0
Guide Star Info:
Star ID: NOMAD1 1268-0173390
Coords: 08:15:13.31 +36:50:08.35
Phot: R=15.30 B=15.82
The two offsets are a small 5-arcsec relative RADEC OFFSET followed by a
restoring ACQUISITION offset and image to create a different image to
indentify this faint source.
If your acquisition script includes a further offset after the telescope preset, e.g., to perform a blind offset between a bright star and a very faint hard-to-see target, luciView will verify that the guide star is still inside the AGw patrol field after the offset. The final offset position will be drawn over the DSS image with the original "aim point" for the script drawn as a yellow circle so you can see the offset. For example:
% luciView grb123456_blind.acq
LUCI .acq Script: grb123456_blind.acq
Summary:
Object: GRB123456
Coords: 08:15:02.19 +36:46:03.91
Rotator PA: 10.7 deg
Guide Star: 08:15:13.30 +36:50:08.90
Camera: N1.8
Slit Mask: LS1.00_600um (ID990034)
Filter: H
Exposure: 3x10.0 sec
Relative RADEC Offset(s):
Offset 1: dRA=0.00 dDec=0.00 arcsec
Offset 2: dRA=-10.09 dDec=30.75 arcsec
Final Position: dRA=-10.09 dDec=30.75 arcsec
Guide Star Check:
The guide star is inside the LUCI guide patrol field.
Guide star inside the patrol field after Offset 1
Guide star inside the patrol field after Offset 2
Displaying LUCI sky view:
Downloading the image from the dssstsci image server...
Plotting NOMAD1 catalog stars with their R magnitudes...
Magnitude Range: 16.5 < R < 11.0
Guide Star Info:
Star ID: NOMAD1 1268-0173390
Coords: 08:15:13.31 +36:50:08.35
Phot: R=15.30 B=15.82
If you just want to check the guide star and print summary info without viewing the field in DS9, you would type:
% luciView ngc1234_field2.acq --nodisp
Finally, to view a summary of luciView command options, type
% luciViewwithout arguments. This will show the usage message, providing a quick summary of the command syntax and the various command-line options available.
For example:
luciView ngc5194_3.acq NGC5194mdm.fitsWill use FITS image NGC5194mdm.fits as the background image and draw the overlay on that.
Some provisos when using this option:
For example:
luciView deepfield_2.acq --lms deepfield_2.lmsWill draw the LUCI focal plane and the multi-object mask slits over a DSS image of the field:
One utility of this option is to check a mask design to make sure you haven't put very bright stars in the alignment boxes. In this case, one of the alignment stars (just above center) is 13.99 mag.
% luciView j1154.acq --finderwill create a PNG file named j1154.png.
This particular example is a deep imaging script in which the user want 15 images with a 20-arcsec radius JITTER pattern between images. The dashed green circle around the guide star shows the outer limit of the random jitter offsets. This provides a quick visual cue as to whether the jitter throw might cause the guide star to leave the guide patrol field, which would terminate the exposure sequence with a guide probe out-of-range error.
% luciView ngc1234.acq --minmag 15 --maxmag 12For example, this combination of command-line options instructs luciView to only display stars between R=12 and R=15 mag. In this context, "min" means faint, and "max" means bright.
You can also change the star catalog used with the -c/--catalog option. For example:
% luciView ngc1234.acq --catalog ub1uses the USNO-B1 catalog. At present we support three star catalogs:
Finally, you can suppress plotting any stars by using the --nocat option:
% luciView ngc1234.acq --nocatThis option has no effect guide star checking.
% luciView ngc1234.acq --findThis will take the target coordinates and rotator position angle from the acq script and print a list of candidate guide stars selected from the NOMAD1 (or specified) star catalog that satisfy the following criteria:
Searching the NOMAD1 catalog excerpt for candidate guide stars...
Found 7 candidates:
Star ID RA Dec R B
-------------------------------------------------------
6 1078-0275520 13:16:31.58 17:49:04.36 14.16 15.24
4 1078-0275506 13:16:27.30 17:51:36.27 14.56 17.81
20 1079-0267216 13:16:40.43 17:57:22.84 15.75 16.05
19 1079-0267187 13:16:24.04 17:54:01.96 15.83 17.32
2 1078-0275466 13:16:20.19 17:53:46.80 16.13 16.84
7 1078-0275527 13:16:34.17 17:49:41.70 16.24 18.32
5 1078-0275510 13:16:28.06 17:52:42.93 16.36 16.70
-------------------------------------------------------
Select a guide star (0 to abort):
At the prompt, enter the star number to select (e.g., 19), or 0
to quit selection. On selecting the star, it will be circled in
cyan and the stub of script code needed for this start will
be printed in your terminal screen to cut and paste into
your acquisition script. For example, selecting star 19 above
would print:
Select a guide star (0 to abort): 19 Guide Star Selection: GUIDE_NAME =NOMAD1 1079-0267187 GUIDE_COORD =13 16 24.04 +17 54 01.96If you are viewing an imaging (.img) script with JITTER defined, on selecting the star it will also plot the maximum jitter circle as a dashed green line. This will let you visually assess if your new guide star will accidentally wander outside of the guide patrol field (or into the vignetting avoidance region) when executing a random jitter pattern.
Note that we do not automatically select a guide star because there is an irreducible element of user judgement that must come into play.
European LBT partners may wish instead to use the DSS images server at ESO in Garching:
% luciView ngc1234.acq --server esoWill use the ESO image server and the DSS2-red survey. This is the closest match (visible from LBT) of the default images delivered by STScI.
You can change the sky survey image source with the --survey keyword. Options are:
Note that while it is possible to display 2MASS images from the image server in luciView, 2MASS images are only available in single stripes, and the resulting view usually falls off the edges unless you are lucky (SDSS images have similar issues). Since the main functions of luciView is to verify or select guide stars for visible wavelength guiding and active optics correction, using 2MASS images is of limited utility.
luciView B1514-241.acq --server eso
and it displays fine. The boundary between the northern and southern
survey converage is ragged, so it is hard to predict when a particular
target will land too close to the last image boundary in the survey.
The solution is to kill the luciView DS9 window and send the command again. After this, you can mix DSS and user FITS images easily. I have no idea why it does this.
The need for a similar capability for LUCI led to building a new progam based on modsView. In its present beta-release form luciView has all the same features as modsView, but it does not have an interactive mode because of current bugs in pyds9 and ds9 (if you peek inside the program some test interactive functions are in there, but the current release of pyds9 has bugs in the imexam XPA access point that make cursor interaction crash-prone).
At present we are releasing luciView via the OSU/RC partner queue website, but in the near future it will be available from svn repositories at OSU and LBTO. We are also in the process of modularizing the core routines common to luciView and modsView to make them available as building blocks for other applications.