HSpot is the means by which users and potential users of the Herschel Space Observatory can provide new and updated observing requests for the observatory. It also incorporates a proposal submission tool. It is based on Spot (originally SPOT - Spitzer Observing Planning Tool) developed for NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, but includes many upgrades and is designed for the formulation of observing requests for the three science instruments on board Herschel -- HIFI, SPIRE and PACS. Detailed information on the instruments, and some further, instrument specific, HSpot illustrations are provided in the three instrument manuals also available from the Herschel Space Observatory website at:
For help that is not provided in either the instrument or HSpot manuals, the Herschel Helpdesk can be contacted at:
http://herschel.esac.esa.int/esupport/
Helpdesk only has a web interface. Users cannot send questions by email. To submit a question a user must register with Helpdesk (http://herschel.esac.esa.int/registration.shtml) as, only by registering will the user be able to supply all the contact details that we need to respond to queries.
The prime purpose of this manual is therefore to describe the setup and use of the user interface to HSpot.