' STATION DATA
siteLon = -97.12345                   ' Site longitude (degrees), positive E of Greenwich  
siteLat = +39.12345                   ' Site latitude (degrees), positive North
siteHeight = 315                      ' Altitude of observing station (meters)
siteTemp = 20                         ' Approximate ambient temperature (deg C)

• siteLon. Specify the latitude of the observing station (in degrees; north latitudes are positive).

• siteLat. Specify the longitude of the station (in degrees; longitudes east of Greenwich are positive).

• siteHeight. Specify the altitude of the station in meters above sea level. This parameter, which is used in atmospheric refraction calculations, is only relevant if you set parameter corrTgtCoords to True.

• siteTemp. Specify a typical ambient temperature (in degrees Celsius) at the station. This parameter, which is used in atmospheric refraction calculations, is only relevant if you set parameter corrTgtCoords to True.

Basic parameters which determine script behavior

' BASIC PARAMETERS WHICH DETERMINE SCRIPT BEHAVIOR
checkForSunUp = True                  ' True to enable checks of the sun altitude which 
                                      ' prevent daytime observations (the script will wait
                                      ' until sunset to start observations, and shut down
                                      ' the system at sunrise)
highSunAltObsEvening = -15.0          ' Highest sun altitude (deg) at which science images
                                      ' will be taken in the evening
highSunAltObsMorning = -19.0          ' Highest sun altitude (deg) at which science images
                                      ' will be taken in the morning

scheduled = True                      ' True if you wish to take into account the scheduled
                                      ' times for each observation, False if you wish to
                                      ' ignore scheduled times or if they are not present
                                      ' in your target lists
downloadWhileSlew = True              ' True to use the download-while-slew feature
corrTgtCoords = False                 ' True to convert J2000 target coordinates to
                                      ' local topocentric coordinates before slewing
                                      ' (This option is most useful for Meade telescopes)

• checkForSunUp. If you set this parameter to True, the script will check the sun's altitude at the observing station so as to prevent observations with the sun above the horizon. The script will also follow the sequence of events of a nighttime observing run, which includes starting the observations at the appropriate time after sunset and shutting the observatory down some time before sunrise. If you set this parameter to False, it will disable the sun altitude checks, so that the system will be able to execute observations in daytime. This is useful for daytime tests of the equipment and software. In this daytime mode, one should take appropriate precautions to ensure the safety of the equipment, such as keeping the roll-off building or dome which houses the telescope closed at all times. Users of automated domes should set the parameters openDomeWhenSunDown and closeDomeOnCompletion to False to prevent accidental opening of the dome during daytime tests.

• highSunAltObsEvening. Set this to the sun altitude (in degrees) which should correspond to the start of a night's science imaging. This would normally be set to some value between -13 deg and -15 deg, which corresponds to the time when the sky gets dark enough to start the observations.

• highSunAltObsMorning. Set this to the sun altitude (in degrees) which should correspond to the end of a night's science imaging. This would normally be set to some value between -13 deg and -15 deg, which corresponds to the start of morning twilight.

• scheduled. This parameter would normally be set to True, so that the script will take into account the scheduled time for each observation which appears in the target lists produced by the TAO scheduler. In this case, if the script starts to execute a target list when the scheduled time for the first observation is already past, it will skip some of the initial observations and start with the first observation whose scheduled time is not yet past (see also the discussion about the timing tolerance for scheduled observations). If you set this parameter to False, the scheduled observation times in the target list will be ignored, and the observations will be executed starting with the first observation in the list.

• downloadWhileSlew. Set this to True to enable the download-while-slew feature, which means that science images will be downloaded as the telescope slews to the next target. This feature often leads to substantial time savings, allowing more observations to be performed in a given time interval. To use this feature, your telescope must be able to perform the so-called asynchronous slews. If you set this parameter to False, the script will download and save each science image, and then start the slew to the next target.

• corrTgtCoords. Set this to True if you wish that corrections for atmospheric refraction be applied to each target J2000.0 coordinate read from the target lists generated by the TAO scheduler. Otherwise, set it to False.