An Optical Pointing run is assumed to take place within one SchedBlock. A list of potential
targets is provided within the SchedBlock, but the Control script used to execute the
SchedBlock may not use all of them.
In this first version the SchedBlock to be executed contains a collection of optical camera
targets, very similar to the observing targets used for radiometric observing. However,
there are, of course, some crucial differences:
-
Optical Camera Targets do not have a list of source properties, instead they
have a visible magnitude.
-
Optical Camera Targets do not have a receiver/correlator setup. Instead they have
an optical camera specification (or setup) allowing the filter and a minimum integration
time to be specified.
-
It is not necessary to define a pointing pattern - this is taken care of by the
Control system.
Otherwise Optical Camera Targets are very similar to other kinds of target - they may be
added to a Schedblock, deleted, copied/pasted etc. Note that different types of targets may
be mixed within a SchedBlock. However, this mode is not yet recommended.
The SchedBlock itself also has additions to support optical pointing:
-
Limits on the magnitude of the targets to be used
-
An elevation limit below which targets should not be observed
-
A tolerance for pointing the antenna
These ``control'' parameters are only used in the context of optical pointing.
The ALMA OT Team, 2012 May 25