Background

Your starlist file lists all of the science targets you plan to observe during the night. You must install this file in the appropriate place on the Keck computer system in order for the telescope software to locate it. This page describes the procedure for transferring your starlist from your laptop at Keck, or from a remote computer outside of Keck.

Procedure

• Create a starlist file on your computer in accordance with the specified Keck starlist file format. You're free to name your starlist file whatever you want, but most observers name their starlist for their observing date (e.g., 2012jan13.lst).
• Determine your assigned instrument account from the posted Keck telescope schedule.
• If your computer is outside of the Keck network, then complete the special procedure to gain access through the Keck firewall. For security reasons, we do not post this procedure publically; please consult your assigned Support Astronomer (as shown on the telescope schedule) for details.
• Open a window on your laptop or remote computer, and navigate to the directory containing your starlist file.
• Use scp to transfer your starlist file to your home directory at Keck:

  	scp filename account@keckhost.keck.hawaii.edu:

  where
  • filename is the name of your starlist file
  • account is the name of your observing account listed on the telescope schedule
  • keckhost is the name of the Keck computer you want to connect to (e.g., sshserver1)
  When prompted, supply the appropriate password for the observing account on the Keck host. Contact your Support Astronomer if you need the password. Verify that the transfer completes without error. Note that the colon after the hostname shown above is required. If you leave it off, the scp command will create a file called account@keckhost on your local computer instead of transferring the file to Keck!
• To complete the installation of your starlist file, log directly into the computer where you placed your file via

  	ssh account@keckhost.keck.hawaii.edu

  where
  • account is the name of your observing account listed on the telescope schedule
  • keckhost is the name of the Keck computer you placed your file on (e.g., sshserver1)
  When prompted, supply the appropriate password for the observing account on the Keck host.
• Execute the install_starlist command to sanity check your starlist and put it in the correct directory:

  	install_starlist filename

Example

This example assumes that you have created a starlist file called 2012jan13.lst to use with the lris1 account. Boldface text indicated user keystrokes.

user@hanakowai:~/tmp% scp 2012jan13.lst lris1@sshserver1.keck.hawaii.edu:
Password: ********
2012jan13.lst                     |   891B |   0.9 kB/s | TOC: 00:00:01 | 100%

user@hanakowai:~/tmp% ssh lris1@sshserver1.keck.hawaii.edu
Password: ********

[1] lris1@kapoho: ls
2012jan13.lst*

[2] lris1@kapoho: install_starlist 2012jan13.lst

Validating starlist file '2012jan13.lst'...OK.

Enter the P.I.'s last name, or the name of the /kroot/starlists subdirectory
into which the file should go: einstein

WARNING: The file '/kroot/starlists/einstein/2012jan13.lst' already exists;
should I overwrite it? (y/n) [n]: y

Your starlist is now installed in directory /kroot/starlists/einstein:
-rw-rw-rw-   1 lris1    lris1        891 Jan 13 16:24 /kroot/starlists/einstein/2012jan13.lst
[3] lris1@kapoho: exit

Note that /kroot/starlists/ is equivalent to /s/starlists/

See Also

• Starlist file format