SourceViewer

SourceViewer is an application for optimizing the observation strategy by checking the sky coverage for a given sample.

how to use it

simply run python SourceView.py

the GUI

The GUI of the application in a typical Linux environment is showing bellow.

the sky coverage plot

• blue vertical lines: the slewing limits of the antenna in azimuth
• red line: the horizon of the mountains (or more precisely, the elevation below which the signal strength decreases by 10dB due to shielding by the mountains/trees)
• green points: the position of the loaded sources at starting UT
• red points: the position of the loaded sources at ending UT
• yellow line: the oberving sequence of the sources in the queue, big yellow point indicates the starting source. The expected total obereving time for this sequence is shown in the terminal.

the button and setup panels

see settings and operations bellow

the source lister

• Available: list of the sources above the horizon of the mountains

• Invisible: list of the sources below the horizon of the mountains

• Queue: list of the sources that are to be observed

settings

• Addr.: the remote address that the observation script will be uploaded to. The input format should be username@ipaddress:directory
• Passwd: the SSH password for the remote computer
• Start UT: the starting observation time in UT, by default it is the computer time when the application is opened
• Duration: the duration of the observation in hour

operations

• Load Source: open a dialog to choose a catalog that contains the observation sample
• Output: save the sources listed in the queue to an observation script, which is by default named tmp.run
• Upload: upload the observation script to a remote controling computer
• Refresh: refresh the sky coverage plot
• Move Up: move up the selected source(s) in the queue
• Move Down: move down the selected source(s) in the queue
• Right Arrow: move the available source(s) into the queue
• Left Arrow: move the selected source(s) out from the queue