SKYMAP Installation

Availability

skymap is available via anonymous ftp from cfa-ftp.harvard.edu in the directory pub/gsc/Skymap in the following files:

skymap4.9.solaris.tar.Z

Sparcstation Solaris 2.5.1 binary executable, initial parameter file, and help file,

skymap4.8.alpha.tar.Z,

Digital Unix Alpha binary executable, initial parameter file, and help file

skymap.ps.Z.

Preliminary manual in Postscript The Readme file in that directory describes the contents. Currently only DEC Alphas and Sparcstations are supported; however the code is fairly portable FORTRAN and C, so ports to other Unix systems should be fairly easy. Contact Doug Mink at dmink@cfa.harvard.edu or phone (617)495-7408 for source code availability.

FTP Acquisition

To acquire skymap, type the following

	% ftp cfa-ftp.harvard.edu
	login: anonymous
	password: [your user name]
	ftp> cd pub/gsc/Skymap
	ftp> get Readme
	ftp> binary
	ftp> get skymap4.9.solaris.tar.Z
         	or
	ftp> get skymap4.8.alpha.tar.Z
	ftp> quit
	%

Web Acquisition

Using your browser, click here to get a listing of the pub/gsc/Skymap directory on cfa-ftp.harvard.edu, then click on the binary file you wish to download. A box will appear on your display into which you should enter the local file where you want to save the file. After the file has been transferred, follow the installation directions below.

Installation

After acquiring the file, uncompress the tar file and extract the executable and supporting files

	% zcat skymap4.9.solaris.tar.Z | tar xvf -
		or
	% zcat skymap4.8.alpha.tar.Z | tar xvf -
	% chmod a+x skymap

Install the man page, skymap.1, in a location where it will be found when users type

	man skymap.

Changing the Default Parameter file

newdef is a program to change the directory from which skymap reads a default parameter file if no parameter file exists in the current working directory. It is packaged in the tar file you retrieved above.

The first argument is the name of the executable file, and the second argument is the pathname of the directory which contains the default parameter file for this program. This pathname may be up to 64 characters long. If it is omitted, newdef will print the pathname of the current default directory. If there are three arguments, the second is the name of the default directory to be replaced. If the second argument is omitted, it is assumed to be /home/mink/Defaults, which works on Center for Astrophysics Computation Facility Sparcstations and Alphas. If no arguments are given, newdef prints a brief description of how to use the program. To set the default from its initial value to /usr/local/lib, for example, you would type

	newdef skymap /usr/local/lib

If you later want to change the default parameter directory to /usr/local/defaults, type

	newdef skymap /usr/local/lib /usr/local/defaults

Hardcopy output

A C program, pstek, has been written to plot Tektronix files such as those which skymap produces onto Postscript printers. A second program, tek2ps, converts Tektronix files to Postscript files without printing them. Source code and Unix man pages are available for anonymous ftp at

ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/gsc/Skymap/pstek.tar.Z.

If pstek works on your system, set the HCCOM parameter in skymap.par to the appropriate command before saving it in the default directory.

Hardcopy calibration

skymap can plot maps with a specific plate scale to overlay photgraphic plates or prints or to match a specific image on a display. To calibrate your output device, measurements must be made from a specific plot. The file scale.tek contains Tektronix plotting commands which will display a grid of boxes marked with corner coordinates:

Print this file using pstek, imtek, or another program, and measure several of the lines, both vertically and horizontally, dividing their lengths in millimeters by the marked lengths of those lines in Tektronix plotting units, and set the parameter MDIST in skymap.par to the average value. After setting any other parameters to values which you think users at your site will almost always use, the skymap.par file can be saved in the directory you set in skymap using newdef. If different output formats are used, and a plate scale is to be maintained, this file can be plotted to that format, measurements can be redone, and MDIST can be modified in a local version of skymap.par.

Guide Star Catalog CDROM Setup

If you intend to use the HST Guide Star Catalog, two parameters in skymap.par need to be set to tell skymap where to find CDROMs. Use your favorite editor to set CDNORTH and CDSOUTH to the pathnames of Volume 1 and Volume 2, respectively. The pathnames should be surrounded by either single or double quotes. In SunOS 4, Sun did not support an optional extension to the ISO-9660 CDROM standard used by the Guide Star Catalog, so it is necessary to patch the operating system to enable skymap to read the catalog. Those patches, with directions for their application to SunOS 4.1.1, 4.1.2, and 4.1.3 can be found in the files sunos4.1.1.patch, sunos4.1.2.patch, and sunos4.1.3.patch in the directory:

ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/gsc/CDROM

Decstation Ultrix makes all file names on the CDROMs upper case, which you can see if you ls the files on the CDROMs, but skymap automatically figures out whether or not the file names are upper case.