Background
Your starlist file contains the list of targets you plan to
observe during the night at Keck. The file must conform to
certain formatting rules in order for the SKY program (used to
control the telescope) to read the file properly.
Formatting Rules
General Rules
- One object per line.
- No blank lines or comment lines allowed.
Required Fields
- First field is the target name in columns 1-16 (tabs
and spaces allowed). Maximum length is 15 characters.
- Next three tokens are RA in the form HH MM SS.SS
(including an arbitrary number of decimal places).
- Next three space-separated tokens are Dec in the
form (-)DD MM SS.S (again, to an arbitrary number of
decimal places).
Note: if the Dec is between 0 and -1, the
dd field MUST be -00).
- Next token is equinox in the form YYYY.YY (no
parentheses; arbitrary number of decimal places), with
<=1950 meaning FK4 and 2000 meaning FK5
and APP meaning apparent.
Optional Fields
The following fields are identified by the form
keyword=value.
Note: no spaces are allowed
around either side of the equals sign.
- pmra=s.ssss
(RA proper motion in seconds-of-time/year)
- pmdec=a.aaa
(Dec proper motion in arcsec/year).
- dra=s.ssss
(RA differential tracking rate in arcsec/hr divided by 15;
positive implies moving east).
- ddec=a.aaa
(Dec differential tracking rate in arcsec/hr).
- vmag=m.m
(V magnitude)
You may place other comments or notes at the end of the line.
These will be ignored by SKY, but retained in your text file for
your information.
Note: For historic reasons, if the equinox is
APP, either dra/ddec or pmra/pmdec will be interpreted
as differential tracking rates.
Sample Starlist File
197+17.1 07 29 09.400 +20 54 45.90 2000.0
ring neb 18 53 36.000 +33 02 00.00 2000.0
SAO 102961 17 34 24.13 11 52 28.29 1950.0 pmra=+0.0001 pmdec=-0.007 vmag=9.0
HD 19904 03 08 49.1 -39 14 24 1950
G77-31 03 10 40.5 +04 35 12 1950 pmra=0.1139 pmdec=0.107
Hale-Bopp 5hr 17 30 6.62 -4 41 58.4 APP dra=0.35 ddec=7.3
Titan 6:00UT 01 05 39.6050 +04 00 28.846 APP dra=-0.96 ddec=-4.2
Barbara Schaefer
Last modified: Wed May 9 14:48:16 HST 2001
