==========================================================
Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to Steve Moshier for allowing his work to be modified
and re-issued to perform a specific task.

See http://www.moshier.net for this prolific authors work.

This program is based upon a modifed version of Steves aa-54.zip.
His current version is aa-55.zip (can never keep up! :)

===========================================================

olistgen Version 0.2 Alpha Release 02/15/2002

DOS Command prompt executable.

All rights granted to host this file, or re-distribute as desired as long as
as this README.txt is propogated unmodified.

I have every intention to distribute the source code under the GPL after the beta tries
are completed.


Gene Nolan

==========================================================

Note: To use this program requires the cygwin1.dll available free for download.

See: http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/ for more info on Cygwin.

Download  ftp://mirrors.rcn.net/mirrors/sources.redhat.com/cygwin/latest/bootstrap.zip for
a cygwin1.dll contained therein and place it in the same directory you unzipped this
distribution to.

==========================================================

See the end of the README for instructions on running the program.

Note: The program does not mean to control Astrovideo. It is meant to calculate alt-az of objects.
It outputs whatever is in the file 'camera.ini' to the output to init Astrovideo, then
if an object from the input list meets given user criteria, it spits out whatever is in the
'exposure.ini' file preceeded by a 'goto' command.

So if the commands in the two files 'camera.ini' and 'exposure.ini' are valid to astrovideo, the
resultant script should be valid. Do not forget to set up other non-scriptable astrovideo
parameters (and webcam setup) first!!!

Experiment!!

The observing list generator reads a list of candidate objects
(any objects you want, just got to type them all in once), runs
them thru a highly modified (input/output wise, not algorithmic)
version of Steve Moshier's Ephemeris Program v5.4g, and spits
out a formatted script with initialization, goto's , filename control,
and camera control commands (currently meant to be fed into
Astrovideo as a script, but init and camera control are user defined that is input from a file).

See http://www.ip.pt/coaa/astrovideo.htm for this fine very low cost program.

The prog allows for time between exposures and scope slews,
 determines if the topocentric alt/az of the object at
 time/date/location(all user input) of observation is within user defined criteria of:

min declination
max declination
min RA HA 
max RA HA
max altitude to allow the scope to slew
(for those altaz users, including me!)
minimum altitude "bins" based upon azimuth
(tree here, house there,
to lazy to put down the gables on the flip roof 
observatory!)
min magnitude of object
string to match in 'description' field of object
(e.g. galaxy morphology)

I have been in touch with Steve M and he has no
problem with this.

Sample run times : 6025 candidates, 28 match criteria,
less than a minute on P500 Thinkpad.



#########################################################################


Below are explanations of the files contained in the distribution.

Please pay careful attention to input files of that you generate.
There is LITTLE IF ANY ERROR checking in the program.


Sample 'run params' file telle the prog about your location,
the date and time of interest, the approximate time for an exposure cycle,
the max number of lines to process in the candidate file, the type of objects
to work on ('88' in Steve's orig prog), and the file name of the candidate objects.

See the file 'input.txt' in the distribution.

NOTE: COMMENTS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE FILE, THE FOLLOWING is for instructional value.
===================================
1998			;epoch year (1997/1998 for my lx200)
1			 ;month of observing run
22			 ;day
20			 ;hour (LST)
0			 ;minute
0 			;seconds
0.001389		 ;approx time between slews(days) 0.001389 = 2minutes
10000			 ;max number of  'candidate' entries
88			 ; Steve Moshier program type '88'
candidates.txt		 ; Name of file containing the candiate objects


===================================================================
Sample line from 'Candidate' file= "Candiates.txt" in distribution.
The column descriptions ARE NOT part of the file. Every line in the
file MUST contain 13 entries except for the end of input marker.
The columns containing indicated by 'Type1' , 'String', or 'Const' can be any string or
single non-whitespace character and are not used.

Name Type1  Type2     RA           Dec      Const  Mag     String    String
NGC1  Gx     Sb      0 7 15.9   27 42 30    PEG   13.6    1.9x1.2   120
----------------------------
----------------------------

Note: The 'Type2' field is used against a pattern match, see the 'criteria' file description
below.

Note: VERY IMPORTANT: the two lines with '-----------------' signify the end of
      input to the program!!!! If they are not included, it will seem to hang, then after a while
      ask more questions!!! (The required questions are all answered in the 'input.txt' file).

==================================================================
Sample setup file for Astrovideo = 'camera.ini' in the distribution.
Any valid Astrovideo command can be put in here.
NOTE: The prog currently places a 'closecommport:" at
the end of the output.

Note: If you interrupt Astrovideo from executing the full script, it keeps the
comm port open, so in order to re-execute the script, you must first exit Astrovideo and
re-run it to close the comm port.

opencommport:1
setframesperimage:1
settotalimages:1
setcolour:
enableextended:
setfinaletime:200
setpostexposuretime:10
nosaveimages:
setdirectory:c:\newpics

========================================================
The file='exposureo.ini' in the distribution

Copy this file to exposure.ini.
Exposure.ini will be written in-toto 
to the output for each candiate object that
meets the criteria.


waitfor: 10000	 	;let the scope finish the slew
startcapture:
savebmp:
waitfor: 2000
startcapture:
savebmp:
waitfor: 2000
startcapture:
savebmp:
waitfor: 2000

=================================================
The criteria file = 'limits.ini' in the distribution

0.0			 ;Min RA HA to process
9.0			 ;Max RA HA to process
-50.0			 	;Min DEC to process
90.0			 	; Max DEC to process
12.5			 	;Min MAG to process
65.0				 ;Max altitude to allow
S 				;String to match in Type2 field
4				;Number of ranges of alt, az (max 20)
15.0 30.0   180.0		;from 30-180 AZ only 15deg altitude or above
15.0 180.0 330.0		;from 180 to 330deg az ditto
91.0 0.0     29.999		; from 0 to 30deg az, NO slew
91.0 330.0 360.0		; ditto for 330 to 360


================================================
Sample output for a candidate that met the criteria:

See the file='sampleout.txt' in the distribution.


================================================
To define your location in the world, the file='aa.ini' in the distribution is used,
edit the file to match.

-75.17 ;Terrestrial east longitude of observer, degrees
40.17  ;Geodetic latitude, degrees
0.0    ;Height above sea level, meters
12.0   ;Atmospheric temperature, deg C
1010.0 ;Atmospheric pressure, millibars
1      ; 0 - TDT=UT, 1 - input=TDT, 2 - input=UT
-18000.0    ;Use this deltaT (sec) if nonzero, else compute it. -18000 seconds
            ; equals -5 hours from GMT


==================================
Caveats:

The beginiing of the output contains a series of informational and debug messages,
YOU MUST DELETE these from the output BEFORE feeding to Astrovideo.

==================================
Running the program:

Unzip all to a directory.
Download and place the cygwin1.dll vession 1.3.6 from: 
  ftp://mirrors.rcn.net/mirrors/sources.redhat.com/cygwin/latest/bootstrap.zip
  into the same directory.

Edit the file 'aa.ini' to match your location in the world.

Open a command prompt window

Copy the file exposureo.ini to exposure.ini

execute the program with the distribution defaults to try it first time:

.\olistgen <input.txt >firsttime.txt

Compare the result file 'firsttime.txt' with the file 'sampleout.txt' contained in the distribution.

