Adding Sources to Your Personal Catalog

There are three obvious ways to add sources to your personal catalog, each described below. A fourth one is that the OPT gets filled with information from the PST once the PSC has approved observing time for your project, but this is currently not completely functional. If you find a catalog imported directly from the PST, please carefully check the target source positions and velocities (and velocity definitions and reference frames) before you start using them in the OPT.

 

Importing source lists used with the PST

If you or a co-investigator uploaded a source list with your proposal in the PST, and this source list has not been transferred from the PST (or you prefer to delete that one), you should be able to get a head-start by uploading the same source list to the OPT. Use FILE - IMPORT... to communicate with a dialog box. Choose PST as input format and name your source catalog. As a reminder, the PST format is/can be found in Section 4.4.4 of the PST manual (e.g., from the NRAO proposal portal documentation link (https://my.nrao.edu/nrao-2.0/PSTMANUAL/PSTMANUAL.html) in case you decide to make such a file at this stage. You may want to check the details of some sources to convince yourself that the information has ended up correctly in the source property definitions, in particular the velocity reference frame and definition. Checking it now may save you more trouble downstream when scheduling SBs.

 

Copy/paste from existing catalogs

It is likely that your anticipated calibrator sources are already defined in, e.g., the VLA calibrator source catalog. You can search for your named, or a nearby, calibrator source using the search tool described earlier in this chapter. In the catalog (or group) or in the search results you can select one or more sources you desire to add to your personal catalog by ticking the check-box(es) in front of the source name and editing icon using the top menu strip EDIT - COPY - COPY SOURCES, etc. Then select the destination catalog or group and simply paste the copied sources: EDIT - PASTE - PASTE SOURCES, etc. You have to redo this action for each catalog or search results table page. Again convince yourself that the source information in your personal source catalog is correct, e.g., by adding velocity information for spectral line observations, before starting to assign source information to scans in the OPT.

 

Enter source information from scratch

If you do not use the PST upload file and your source does not appear in any of the existing catalogs, you would create a new source in a source catalog (or group) after selecting (or creating) the catalog or group you want to place the source in: (FILE - CREATE NEW - CATALOG/GROUP,) FILE - CREATE NEW - SOURCE. You will be presented with a blank-slate source page consisting of three tabs (or pages) labeled "New Source", "Image Links" and "Notes". Name your source, perhaps something convenient to search for at a later point. Maybe you also care to fill out the origin of your data for your own reference, possibly useful for later (PST file name, SIMBAD data base, scooped draft paper, etc.).

Connect with NRAO

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