Writing or Modifying Scripts

Most observers control NIRSPEC via the XNIRSPEC or EFS GUIs; however, these GUIs simply interact with Keck's keyword system. Users may be familiar with the "show" and "modify" commands for reading and writing keywords. Users may also combine multiple commands into a script.

The easiest way to script NIRSPEC is to execute a setup or observing sequence from the EFS, then modify that script for further use. When one clicks "GO" on the EFS, the EFS displays the location of the script it is executing near the bottom. Users may also save setups or observing sequences (scripts) directly from the EFS.

Please take care to check your scripts before execution. There is not much error checking at the keyword level to keep you doing something bad!

As always, if you have questions, please contact your support astronomer.

Note about integration times and sample mode:

If you set keywords itime, sampmode, multispec to incompatible values, NIRSPEC will not expose!

Sampmode Use Multispec Min. Exp. Time (s)
1 (Single) engineering ignored 0.25
2 (CDS) observing ignored 0.25
3 (MCDS, Fowler) observing required 0.50