IGRINS Observing Planner

The IGRINS observing planner is a GUI written in Python that interfaces with DS9 and is designed for creating finder charts either before or during observations. It has many useful features including finding guide stars.

Download the latest version by downloading, cloning, or pulling the git repo on github: GitHub - kfkaplan/IGRINS_observing_planner

Requirements:

Python 3 (anaconda recommended)
DS9 SAOImageDS9 (on Mac we recommend the X11 version as is the simplest to set up and use with XPA and the IGRINS Observing Planner)
XPA (download here SAOImageDS9 - Download)
astroquery Astroquery — astroquery v0.4.8.dev301
- Install the latest version with the following python -m pip install -U --pre astroquery

Questions, comments, found a bug? Contact Kyle Kaplan at kyle.kaplan@austin.utexas.edu

Make a finder chart

Enter your target. You can easily lookup your target coordinates using simbad by putting a simbad searchable name into “Simbad name” and then clicking “Lookup. ” You can also directly enter target coordinates in the “RA (J2000)” and “Dec (J2000)” fields in sexagesimal format as follows “18 36 56.3363 +38 47 01.280” .

If you want to use the proper motion when making the finder chart, check the box labeled “Use proper motion?”. A simbad lookup should automatically fill the proper motion fields, but you can also manually enter proper motion in mas per year. Set the “epoch” field to the epoch of the night you want the finder chart to represent (for example 2025.5 for the middle of 2025). Proper motion will adjust the location of the slit in the finder chart based on the epoch. Note that the most 2MASS K band images were taken around the year 2000, so if your target has high proper motion, the image showing the location of your target might not necessarily correspond the slit position at a later epoch.

Set the position angle of the IGRINS slit in the “PA (deg)” field. The IGRINS rotator setting for the PA entered is shown directly below and will automatically update.

There are two options for the imaging survey used for making finder charts that can be set with the “Survey” menu. “2MASS K-band” is a good representation of what you will see in the IGRINS slit-view-camera image since the slit-view-camera uses a K-band filter. POSS2 IR is an older photoplate survey taken at ~1 micron that can be used as a backup if the 2MASS image server is down. POSS2 IR images seem to load faster if you want a large FOV such as when trying to check your pointing.

Set “Image FOV (arcmin)” to how large of an area want to see on sky. 6 arcmin is fine if your pointing is good, but you can make it larger if you are unsure where you are pointed and want to see the surrounding star field better. Beware that a larger FOV means it will take longer to load the image when making a finder chart.

When you are finished filling everything out, click the “Make Finder Chart” button. The finder chart should automatically load in DS9. It might take a minute for the image to fully download.

The green rectangle represents the 1”x15” IGRINS slit on the 2.7 m Telescope at McDonald Observatory. The blue compass shows your orientation on the sky. The green outline shows the field of view of the IGRINS slit-view-camera and the image inside of it is representative of what you will see in a slit-view-camera iamge.

Save and load your settings

The settings for a finder chart can easily be saved and loaded from the menu. Saved files are in the .json format. Everything, including information on the guide stars is saved. You can create all your finder charts before an observing run, save them, and then quickly load them as needed when observing.

Finding off-slit guide stars

Some targets, especially dim or extended sources, require the use of offslit guide stars. The IGRINS Observing Planner is designed to try to make finding offslit guide stars as easy as possible.

If you have a known guide star you want ot use, you can ender it’s Simbad name and click “Lookup” to automatically load its coordinates. You can also enter the RA (J2000) and Dec (J2000) coordinates or distance in RA and Dec in arcsec (dRA and dDec) from the target. If you enter the RA and Dec, click “Convert RA Dec (J2000) > dG sL sW”. If you enter dRA and dDec, click “Covert dRA dDec > dG SL SW. This will calculate the location of the guide star in coordinates that are relative to the slit which are SL for slit length parallel to the slit and SW for slit width perpendicular to the slit. This will populate the dG SL and SW fields. You can store up to 10 different guide stars and swap between them using the “Guide Star” menu which is number 1 through 10.

If you need to find a guide star, there is an automated way to do it. You can adjust the maximum number of stars found in the “# stars” field. In the “Survey” menu, you can select if you want to use the Gaia DR2 or 2MASS point source catalog for finding guide stars. Gaia DR2 is usually preferred. If you want to have the most precise positions, which can be critical for making sure your slit is at the correct position, it is highly recommended that you check the “Use proper motion?” box. This will use the Gaia proper motions. Make sure your epoch is set correctly before you search for guide stars if you want to use their proper motions. If your target also has proper motion, make sure the “Use proper motion?” box for your target is also checked and that the proper motion is properly inputted up at the top of the GUI. To search for a guide star, click the “Search for Guide Stars” button. This will grab guide stars from your selected catalog and display the brightest possibilities in DS9. This will show the location of possible guide stars in DS9 with crosses along with the K-band magnitude and SL and SW positions.

In DS9, click the cross marking the guide star you want to use and then in the IGRINS Observing Planner click the “Grab Guide Star” button, which will load the guide star, populate the relevant fields, and calculate dG SL SW. It will also clearly label the single guide star in DS9 with the dG SL and SW coordinates.

Remember you can store up to 10 guide stars and they are all are saved and loaded when saving or loading the finder chart.

Slitscan maps (WORK IN PROGRESS)

The IGRINS Observing Planner will be able to autogenerate slitscan map plans. Slitscan maps are for mapping extended targets and constructing 3D datacubes with the data.

If you want to generate a slitscan plan, click the checkbox that says “Use slitscan?” Slitscans are constructed in “blocks” which are sets of parallel slit positions. Under “single block” the number of slit positions in a block is set with N and the distance between each position is set under “dist. (arcsec).” Typically blocks have 15 positions 1 arcsec apart to complement the 15” length of the slit, so that a block is 15”x15”. N for Rows sets the number of blocks perpendicular to the slit, and N for columns sets the number of blocks parallel with the slit. The distacne between each block in a row or column is set under “dist. (arcsec)”. Typically they are each 15 arcsec apart, to evenly space the blocks.

Roadmap of features to add

TCS worklist generation
Observing script generation
Telescope observing limit plots
Auto generating nightly observing plans