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Specification of time

Time is specified in the form HH:MM:SS, where ` -', ` /' and ` :' are acceptable delimiters. If any part of the time is omitted it is assumed to be equal to zero. HH is allowed to exceed 24, MM and SS may exceed 60, fraction are allowed in any part of the time specification. Time intervals (ranges) bracketing midnight can be specified unambiguously. Units (HR, MIN, SEC) may be specified if one does not like typing colons. The default unit is HR when delimiters are used, otherwise it is SEC. Some examples:

::3600 = :60 = 1: = 1:: = 1HR = 60MIN = 3600SEC = 3600

23: TO 1: is equivalent to : 23: TO 23:59:59, 0: TO 1:

In order to facilitate the specification of observations of an entire night, the special keyword NIGHT has been introduced, which allows specification of (observing) nights, rather than a DATE range (see Table ).

Thus, an observing night may be specified by its start date only.