Target catalogues at the INT

Catalogues of targets need to be passed to the telescope computer (lpas2) for use, but they are most easily entered on the system computer (lpss13). Any catalogue file put into the directory /int/cat on the system computer appears in the directory INT:[cats] on the telescope computer.

Catalogues can be prepared on the system computer as ASCII files, using normal Unix editing tools. There should be one line per target with the format

	name  hh mm ss.ss  dd mm ss.s  equinox
where the fields are separated by tabs or spaces. The equinox field should have a prefix letter stating the catalogue system, e.g. B1950 or J2000. Fractional years in the equinox, e.g. J1998.35, are understood. All catalogues must have .cat at the end of their file names.

Objects in a catalogue are only visible to the TCS if the catalogue has been read in. Do this with the include command at the TCS terminal, e.g.

	USER> include messier.cat
The TCS remembers only one user catalogue at a time; including a new one causes it to forget the old targets. The contents of the current user catalogue can be displayed with the command
	USER> output terminal
and the catalogue may be saved to, e.g., /int/cat/black.cat with the command
	USER> output file int:[cat]black.cat

You can also use the object and add commands (on the system computer) to add targets directly to the current user-catalogue in the TCS.