watcher.txt

Jeff Fookson's description of how to use the dataserver that automatically
runs merge4k on the incoming extended FITS images from bigccd.

Open an IRAF window as you normally would and run the script in the
/home/bigobs/ directory that defines Mont4k ccd tasks, including
merge4k and watcher, and loads the necessary iraf packages:

  cl < mont4k.tasks

Next, move to the directory where bigccd will be sending the files

  cd /home/bigobs/<your.data.directory>

Start the watcher by typing

  watcher

It will announce "watcher started".  Then it should just sit there and
when an image as been transferred to kuiper (watcher checks every 2
seconds for the file), it will announce "running merge4k on
[filename]", where [filename] is the name of the just-transferred
image.  Merge4k converts/combines the raw extended FITS images into a
single normal FITS image, after first correcting each side for the
crosstalk and for the overscan.  The original extended FITS image is
saved in a subdirectory named "raw", and the converted image is renamed
to be the same name in the original directory.

When merge4k is done for that image, the watcher script will announce
"done" and then it will start watching for the next image.  Watcher
automatically changes the name of its window to "watcher" when it
starts up, so you can minimize the window, as you do for the other
background process windows (e.g. dataserver, galilserver), and easily
find it again if you want to check on it.

Use ctrl-C in the watcher window to stop the watcher.


Watcher requires that the "postprocess" feature be enabled, or it
won't work.  "postprocess" is automatically enabled when you execute
the mont4k.tasks file, but if it gets turned off, then you will have
to turn it back on before watcher will automatically use merge4k to
convert your incoming images. postprocess works just like quicklook,
i.e. typing its name in any window with no argument will simply tell
you if it is enabled (on), or not (off).

  postprocess

To turn it on, type

  postprocess on

If you type, in any window,

  postprocess off

Then there will be no postprocessing with merge4k, regardless of whether
watcher is running or not.