Category:OPT-QuickStart: Difference between revisions

Place holder for the OPT quick Start guide currently under development by Amanda Kepley at:

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Introduction

The goal of this guide is to provide a brief practical introduction to using the Observing Preparation Tool (OPT) to create scheduling blocks for the EVLA. After reading this guide, you should be able to successfully create a simple EVLA scheduling block. Please send any questions, comments, or suggestions about this documentation to akepley@nrao.edu. A scheduling block defines a complete set of EVLA observations including your source observations and all necessary calibration (flux, complex gain, bandpass, etc). If you have experience with the old VLA, a scheduling block is the equivalent of an VLA "observe file" created using JObserve. Your total EVLA time allocation may consist of multiple scheduling blocks. Most scheduling blocks are scheduled dynamically based on the conditions at the EVLA. This guide assumes that you understand what data is necessary to successfully calibrate your EVLA data. If you need a refresher, some helpful resources are:

• Taylor, Carilli, and Perley. 1999, Synthesis Imaging in Radio Astronomy II especially Chapter 5 -- Calibration and Editing and Chapter 11 -- Spectral Line Observing I: Introduction,
• EVLA observational status summary, which gives an overview of the EVLA including calibration, and
• the introduction to the VLA calibrator manual, which gives the best practices for calibrating EVLA data

This quickstart guide does not include the all current observing restrictions for the EVLA. These restrictions are given on the OPT web page and change frequently. Make sure you that you read and understand the current restrictions. The OPT page also gives information on the latest features of the OPT. Since the OPT is being actively developed, some images may not be identical to those shown here. There may also be some additional features. However, the overall philosophy and workflow in the OPT should not change. If you need more information about any of the features described in this quick start guide, consult the full OPT manual. If you have questions about the OPT, you can submit a Help Desk ticket via my.nrao.edu.

Overview of the Scheduling Block Creation Process

There are three steps to creating a scheduling block.

1. Create a catalog of the sources you would like to observe. This should include your science source(s) and your calibration sources (flux calibrator, bandpass calibrator, complex gain calibrator, etc).
2. Configure the EVLA receivers and correlator for your proposed observations. An individual EVLA receiver and correlator setup is referred to as an instrument configuration.
3. Create a scheduling block using the source catalog created in step 1 and the instrument configuration(s) created in step 2.

While completing these steps, keep a copy of your original proposal and your time allocation email handy. These documents should have all the information necessary to create your scheduling blocks.