pndaly/ARTN-OBS

Arizona Robotic Telescope Network Observation Block Scheduler

Welcome to the Arizona Robotic Telescope Network Observation Block Scheduler (ARTN-OBS) which generates an observing schedule for any given night for any (valid) telescope and instrument combination within the network.

Quick Start

  % source etc/OBS.sh `pwd` load

  % python3.7 artn_schedule.py --help
    usage: artn_schedule.py [-h] [--instrument INSTRUMENT] [--telescope TELESCOPE]
                            [--verbose]

    ARTN Telescope Scheduler

    optional arguments:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      --instrument INSTRUMENT
                            Instrument, defaults to 'Mont4k', choices: ['90Prime', 'BCSpec', 'Mont4k', 'BinoSpec', 'Vatt4k']
      --telescope TELESCOPE
                            Telescope, defaults to 'Kuiper', choices: ['Bok', 'Kuiper', 'MMT', 'Vatt']
      --verbose             if present, produce verbose output

Pre-Requisites

Linux (we use Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)
Python 3.7 (it will not work with Python < 3.6)
PostGreSQL 12.x (but will probably work with earlier versions)

Get The Software

Obtain a copy of the software from GitHub.

Install dependencies:

  % pip3 install --upgrade pip
  % pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Create (Get) The Dockerized Database

We dockerize the database, so a utility is also provided for that:

```bash
  % bash ${OBS_DOCKER}/docker.sh --help
```

This script is based upon ${OBS_DOCKER}/docker.template.sh which contains dummy credentials. Edit as you see fit but (as a minimum) you should change:

```bash
  my_image="artn/postgres-12:q3c2"
  my_password="db_secret"
  my_username="artn"
  my_volume=${HOME}
```

If you decide to use Docker, remember to restart the container after a reboot via root's crontab (and, of course, replace <path_to_shell_script> with your installation path in the following):

```bash
  @reboot bash <path_to_shell_script>/docker.sh --command=start --name=artn
```

NB: We utilize the Q3C spatial indexing extensions. The file ${OBS_DOCKER}/Dockerfile.artn shows how to build a new image with these extensions. If such a new image is created, the ${OBS_DOCKER}/docker.sh script would have to be edited to reflect the new image. We can provide a tarball of our dockerized container upon request.

Configure For Local Site

You should now copy ${OBS_ETC}/OBS.template.sh and edit the copy to suit your site.

```bash
  % cp ${OBS_ETC}/OBS.template.sh ${OBS_ETC}/OBS.sh
  % vi ${OBS_ETC}/OBS.sh
```

NB: the last line of this file performs an IERS update every time it is invoked.

Test(s)

```bash
  % cd ${OBS_TESTS}
  % bash README.sh
```

IERS Updates

Sometime during 2019 astropy/astroplan broke due to the IERS ephemeris server at USNO going offline. To fix this, the startup script will load the new ephemeris every time it is run. Feel free to comment out this line.

Last Updated: 2020723

Last Author: Phil Daly (pndaly@arizona.edu)

pndaly / ARTN-OBS