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Previous: Observing Words
You may prepare a list of objects with their coordinates for use at the telescope prior to your arrival. Coordinate lists may be sent via email at least two weeks before your observing run to coords@noao.edu. Files should be ASCII text, no longer than 2000 lines. Larger files should be broken into smaller ones. Begin your file with your name, a cache name, telescope, and the dates of your observing run. Coordinates will be checked for format, loaded into the appropriate telescope computer, and acknowledged when all is ready for your arrival.
Each object in the file should be one line of text. The format for data entry is object name (which will be truncated to twelve characters by some telescope control computers), right ascension (starting in column 16 or greater, delimited by the first blank after column 15; hours, minutes, seconds), declination (degrees, minutes, seconds), and epoch. Each field should be separated by one or more spaces. Do not use tabs. The delimiter in the RA and Dec fields may be either spaces or colons. Note that the sign of declination must be adjacent to the declination degrees (i.e., -6 and -06 are allowed, but - 6 is not).
For example:
alpha Lyr 18:36:21.70 +38:46:02.0 1983.0
Proper motion in right ascension and declination (arc seconds per year) may be added to entries after the epoch field as in the following example:
HD 172167 18 36 21.7 +38 46 02 1983.0 +0.200 +0.285
More extensive instructions and options for the data format are available by emailing to coords@noao.edu with a request for complete documentation.