Running MTPipe in Follow Mode

At the beginning of the night:

1. Login to sdssmth
2. Then:
   sdssmth% cd /data/mt/reduction
   sdssmth% mkdir MJD (where MJD is the date you're interested in)
   sdssmth% cd MJD
   sdssmth% setup mt
   sdssmth% setup mtstds
   sdssmth% mtpipe -command followPT
   

At this point, lots of diagnostics will scroll up the screen. You may want to capture them (see commentary below).

At the end of the night:

ctrl-c, possibly several times, to exit mtpipe.

Commentary:

• Setup mtstds after mt to avoid using an an older version of mtstds.
• This uses bias and flat fields found in /data/mt/reduction/biasAndFlats on sdssmth.
• The mtpipe command reduces the data in the sdssmth directory /data/mt/MJD.
• It may be helpful for debugging to redirect the output of the mtpipe command to a file:
• mkdir /data/mt/reduction/MJD
• mtpipe -command followPT >>&! /data/mt/reduction/MJD/followPT.log
• tail -f /data/mt/reduction/MJD/followPT.log
If this is done, you will have to use ps to get the process ID (the one running mt) and kill it at the end of the night (instead of using ctrl-c).
• Follow mode produces output in /data/mt/reduction/QAPhotometry:

compiledPhotometry.dat

A cron job on galileo.apo.nmsu.edu copies this file and uses it to create the plots at http://galileo.apo.nmsu.edu/sky/weather/pt.html. The file contains one line per standard star successfully reduced: the MJD, airmass, the quantity a + k x, and the uncertainty in a + k x, for each filter, where a  is the zero point, k is the extinction coefficient, and x is the airmass.

compiledPhotometryQuick.dat

Intended as an easier for a human to read form of output, each line in this file contains the name of an observed standard star, and the difference between the measured a + k x value and an a + k x value (calculated from typical values of a  and k and the extinction value for the observation), with the uncertainty in this difference for each filter. An uncertainty of 0.50 usually indicates that the mtstds magnitude for the "standard" star is not well known.

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