[vsnet-grb 77169] AGILE Pointing Direction notice is available

Bacodine vxw at capella.gsfc.nasa.gov
Sun Jul 6 03:53:24 JST 2008


TO:  All GCN Notice recipients
RE:  AGILE Pointing Direction Notice is available
DT:  05 Jul 08

INTRODUCTION

The AGILE spacecraft Pointing Direction GCN Notice is now available.
They are available by the socket method and the email-based
(full format & cell/pager fmts) methods.

The AGILE spacecraft observes the sky by making "stare mode" pointings
every 14-30 days.  During these pointing sessions, the spacecraft
slowly drifts across the sky at a rate of about 1deg/day.

The GCN/AGILE_POINTING_DIRECTION Notice gives the current RA,Dec
pointing direction every 8 hours.


GROUND-BASED OBSERVATION STATEGIES:
(This is useful mostly for robotic telescopes)
The RA,Dec information in this notice can be used (a) to obtain
pre-burst images by having your telescope "follow along" (granted
image tiling is needed given the large FOV of the AGILE insgtruments),
or at the very least, (b) it can be used to reduce the slew-time
to the new burst target.


ACTION ITEM:
If you want to receive this AGILE Pointing Direction notice type,
please send me a request to have them enabled.  (And/or if you have
any other changes to your configuration.  And a reminder about
the 3 new SuperAGILE burst position notices announced last week.)
You can do this by forwarding this email to  scott at milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov


NOTICE CONTENT:

An example of the AGILE Pointing Direction Notice (full-format email) is given below.
It contains the current RA,Dec pointing direction at the time
of the notice.  It also gives the start and end times of the
"observing session" (ie that typically 14-30 day period of looking
at a given region of the sky).

    TITLE:           GCN/AGILE NOTICE
    NOTICE_DATE:     Sat 05 Jul 08 14:00:00 UT
    NOTICE_TYPE:     AGILE Pointing Direction
    CURR_POINT_RA:   167.898d {+11h 11m 35s} (J2000),
                     167.996d {+11h 11m 59s} (current),
                     167.323d {+11h 09m 18s} (1950)
    CURR_POINT_DEC:  -47.899d {-47d 53' 55"} (J2000),
                     -47.945d {-47d 56' 42"} (current),
                     -47.627d {-47d 37' 36"} (1950)
    START_DATE:      14647 TJD;   182 DOY;   08/06/30
    START_TIME:      43200.00 SOD {12:00:00.00} UT
    END_DATE:        14678 TJD;   213 DOY;   08/07/31
    END_TIME:        43200.00 SOD {12:00:00.00} UT
    SUN_POSTN:       105.10d {+07h 00m 24s}  +22.71d {+22d 42' 42"}
    SUN_DIST:         90.30 [deg]   Sun_angle= -4.2 [hr] (East of Sun)
    MOON_POSTN:      140.31d {+09h 21m 13s}  +15.63d {+15d 37' 35"}
    MOON_DIST:        68.21 [deg]
    MOON_ILLUM:      9 [%]
    GAL_COORDS:      286.14, 11.69 [deg] galactic lon,lat of the pointing direction
    ECL_COORDS:      194.22,-47.45 [deg] ecliptic lon,lat of the pointing direction
    COMMENTS:        AGILE Pointing Direction.  
    COMMENTS:        The SuperAGILE FOV is ~60deg diameter.
    COMMENTS:        The GRID instrument FOV is ~120deg diameter.



MORE INFORMATION:
Can be found at: http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/agile.html
The socket packets contents can be found at:
http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/sock_pkt_def_doc.html


Sincerely,
Scott

Scott Barthelmy                      NASA-GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD   20771
PHONE:  301-286-3106                 (office)       CELL:   301-346-3733
FAX:    301-286-1684                 (1st choice,  -1682 2nd choice)
EMAIL:  scott at lheamail.gsfc.nasa.gov
PAGER:  3013463733 at cingularme.com
WEB:    http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn

///////////////////////////// Your Current Configuration ////////////////////////

Site_name: VSNET
Lon,Lat=  135.75   35.00
Distribution_method: EMAIL  Attachment_format: NONE
Address: vsnet-grb at ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp   
Filter:  ALL
Error_limit=   360.100 [deg, diameter]
Delta_T_limit= 999.900 [hr]
Swift_Trigger_ID_filter:   Disabled
Sources & Notice Types/Subtypes:
    RXTE-PCA_Alert_wont:      Enabled
    RXTE-PCA_Alert_will:      Enabled
    RXTE-PCA_nosaw:           Enabled
    RXTE-PCA_saw:             Enabled
    RXTE-ASM:                 Enabled
    IPN_POS:                  Enabled
    ALEXIS:                   Enabled
    RXTE-ASM_TRANS:           Enabled
    HETE_S/C_ALERT:           Enabled
    HETE_S/C_UPDATE:          Enabled
    HETE_S/C_LAST:            Enabled
    HETE_GND_ANA:             Enabled
    HETE_TEST:                Disabled
    TYPE2_TEST:               Disabled
    INTEGRAL_Test_notices:    Disabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_TEST:       Disabled
    AGILE_GRB_TEST:           Disabled
    INTEGRAL_POINTDIR:        Disabled
    INTEGRAL_SPIACS:          Enabled
    INTEGRAL_WAKEUP:          Enabled
    INTEGRAL_REFINED:         Enabled
    INTEGRAL_OFFLINE:         Enabled
    GRB_CNTRPART:             Disabled
    MILAGRO_POS:              Disabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_ALERT:      enabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS:        enabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_POS_NACK:   enabled
    SWIFT_BAT_SUBTHRESH_POS:  Disabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LIGHTCURVE: enabled
    SWIFT_FOM_2OBS:           enabled
    SWIFT_SC_2SLEW:           enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_POS:            enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_POS_NACK:       enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM:       enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE:          enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_LIGHTCURVE:     enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE:         enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST:       enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_POS:           enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_POS_NACK:      Disabled
    SWIFT_BAT_GRB_LC_PROC:    enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_SPECTRUM_PROC:  enabled
    SWIFT_XRT_IMAGE_PROC:     enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_IMAGE_PROC:    enabled
    SWIFT_UVOT_SRCLIST_PROC:  enabled
    SWIFT_FULL_DATA_INIT:     enabled
    SWIFT_FULL_DATA_UPDATE:   enabled
    SWIFT_POINTDIR:           enabled
    SWIFT_BAT_TRANS:          Disabled
    SWIFT_BAT_SLEW_POS:       Disabled
    AGILE_GRB_WAKEUP_POS:     Disabled
    AGILE_GRB_GROUND_POS:     Disabled
    AGILE_GRB_REFINED_POS:    Disabled
    AGILE_POINTDIR:           Disabled


General Admistrivia Comments/Suggestions:

1) When requesting changes to your configuration,
it helps if you refer to your site_name.
2) If your site has more than one recipient (ie a list),
please review the list to see if anybody should be deleted;
(the volume of bounce-back-to-gcn emails gets large after a while).
3) If a new contact_person has taken over for the project, please inform me.
4) If your site is no longer active, please inform me.



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