Helpful Links and Tools
The LBTO Info page is a full summary of the current conditions on the summit. It provides real time sensor readings. When on the LBTO VPN, it also provides additional information, such as a snap shot of the telescope operators nightlog. Webcams are distributed throughout the chamber and on the roof to allow remote users a full view of the facility.
Planning tools
OT (Observing Tool) is a tool to help observers construct complex and detailed observing scripts for all of LBT’s facility instruments (LBC, MODS, LUCI). There are libraries available for each of the facility instruments containing templates and examples of common modes. Detailed examples are available to guide users through manipulating the libraries to create customized programs.
OT Plots: For those who have generated programs using the OT, this can easily be plotted. In a given observation, use the Plot Button located in the Main Toolbar to bring up an Elevation/Parallactic Angle Plot for a target, Observation Chart, and other tables.
Airmass vs Time airmass vs time plot tool from ING is another tool that can be sued to plot airmass.
Select Mount Graham International Observatory (Arizona, USA) from the dropdown or LBT coordinates: E longitude[deg] and latitude[deg] and altitude[m] are 250.111 32.7013 3221
NOTE: The local time at LBT is always 7 hrs behind UT and this tool assumes that the local time at LBT is 6 hrs behind UT and that daylight savings time is observed, both of which are incorrect.
Skycalc This tool can be used to list sunrise/sunset, morning/evening twilight and moon phase, and to compute airmass vs time, object-moon distance, parallactic angle. Skycalc is installed on the OBS machines and there is an entry “g” for LBT. Type skycalc to run.
Altitude vs Azimuth: altaz.pdf for declinations > -50 degrees and HA in 30 min increments (HA=0 center line at az=180 for objects to the South, and at 0/360 degrees for objects to the North)
Parallactic Angle vs HA: A plot of parallactic angle vs HA (for Palomar, latitude just ~1 deg N of LBT) can be found in “The Importance of Atmospheric Differential Refraction in Spectrophotometry” Filippenko, A. 1982 PASP, 94, 715.
