NRAO Home  >  Green Bank  |  Wiki Topic:    GB > Data > GbtFitsMonitorContinuum

Changes | Index | Contents | Search | Statistics | Jump to Topic

GFM Continuum

• Available Plugins
• Proposed Plugins
• Fitting Acceptance Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)
• Heuristics Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)
• Data Processing Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)

Available Plugins

Plugin	Description	Alpha	Beta	Production	Additional Information
Focus	Processes Continuum Focus scans
Pointing	Processes Continuum Peak scans
Continuum	Functions as a generic continuum data display for DCR & CCB data
Dynamic Corrections	Monitors dynamic pointing/focus corrections				See RichardPrestage for more details.
Tip	Processes continuum tipping scans

Proposed Plugins

• PTCS
  • The PTCS plugin would provide support for specialized PTCS applications.
• Collimation
  • The Collimation plugin would provide analysis of collimation observations.
• Surface
  • The Surface plugin would provide analysis of observations performed to characterize the beamshape and surface efficiency.

Fitting Acceptance Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)

GFM recognizes the following fitting acceptance criterion only when in on-line mode AND making updates to the telescope:

• Do not apply corrections: Local pointing/focus corrections are never applied, even when the fit is good.
• Automatically accept good fits, automatically reject bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for an automated all-sky pointing run, where we would wish a queue of observations to execute without intervention, but not to have failed fits accepted.
• Automatically accept good fits, interactively accept bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for interactive operation, allowing the observer to make their own judgement for observations which failed to pass the heuristics.
• Interactively accept good and bad fits: This strategy would be appropriate for a conscientious interactive observer.
• Accept all automatically: Local pointing/focus corrections are always applied, even when the fit is bad.

GFM uses the "Automatically accept good fits, automatically reject bad fits" criteria as the default upon initialization. The user may change fitting acceptance criteria by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the Fitting Acceptance Criteria tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.

Heuristics Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)

GFM allows the observer to switch between "standard", "relaxed", and "user-defined" heuristics. An explaination of what heuristics are available and their "standard" and "relaxed" values are in GbtFitsMonitorHeuristics. The "standard" and "relaxed" heuristic values are predefined and cannot be changed by the user. The "user-defined" heuristic values can be specified in the user's .sparrow file under the [GfmRelaxedHeuristics] section. Here is an example of how a [GFMRelaxedHeuristic] section might look:

[GfmUserDefinedHeuristics]
ApplyMedianFilter:   Initial
MedianFilterWidth:   6
PeakBaselineOrder:   3
DBPeakBaselineOrder: 3
FocusBaselineOrder:  3
BaselineRegion:      1.33
GaussFittingRegion:  1.0
MinBaselineLength:   0.2
MinFocusFitFWHM:     0.5
DualBeamGaussian:    1.2
FittedWidthTest:     0.5
FittedOffsetTest:    3.0
BothScansPassTest:   False
RelativeHeightTest:  0.5
RelativeWidthTest:   0.5
RelativeOffsetTest:  0.5

GFM uses "standard" heuristics as the default upon initialization. The user may change the heuristics employed by GFM by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the Heuristics tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.

Data Processing Options (Pointing & Focus Plugins only)

The user may change the data processing strategy and/or polarizations used by GFM by accessing the Options menu via Tools->Options and selecting the Data Processing tab. This options dialog is available only to the Pointing and Focus plugins. Please note that the values are set independently in each plugin. Therefore, the Pointing and Focus plugins can have different option values.

To override these selections a priori, you can modify your .sparrow file to have a [GfmDataProcessingDefaults] section. Here is an example of how a [GFMDataProcessing] section might look:

[GfmDataProcessingDefaults]
BeamSwitched: BeamSwitched
BeamSwitchedTBOnly: BeamSwitchedTBOnly
DualBeam: DualBeam
TotalPower: TotalPower

Items on the left-hand side of the colon are the data acquisition modes and items on the right-hand side of the colon are the data processing modes. Thus if you want your beamswitched data to process in Raw mode, simply type the following line:

BeamSwitched: Raw