Table of Contents
HSpot is a complex and evolving system to which improvements are being made through a series of planned new releases at key dates in the Herschel schedule. Many of these changes are essentially invisible to the vast majority of users (additional specialist functionality used only by the HSC or the expert users at the ICCs, cosmetic improvements, changes to the Spot core, improved characterisation of instruments, bug fixes, proposal handling changes, etc.), some though may have a significant impact on all users, particularly those related to time estimation.
The purpose of this document is to give a guide to the main changes that have been made in the Astronomical Observing Templates (AOTs) for each instrument since the release of the final Phase 2 version for the OT2 Call for Proposals was made (HSpot v5.3.2).
HSpot users who have prepared previously observations with HSpot will be aware that there were numerous changes that affected already prepared Astronomical Observation Requests (AORs) between the 5.2 and 5.3 versions of HSpot. However, between the 5.3.2 version and 6.0.0, although many updates have been made, few of these will directly affect observers in obvious ways. Observing modes are now quite stable, with changes now mainly being made in more specialist observing modes. Time estimates that were previously prepared with HSpot v5.0 are likely to be out of date and must always be re-calculated, although the differences are usually small. Even when time estimates do not change, there are important underlying differences in the software that make a real difference to how the observations are executed on board, so even apparently neutral time estimator changes may be very important for your data. Since launch there have been regular changes in the software that controls the AOTs, with frequent changes of software version (Mission Configuration); each Mission Configuration links to a new time estimator version; while time estimation is now stable with good knowledge of the instruments available, there is a constant tweaking of the way that observations are taken to optimise data quality.
Users are strongly recommended to read this document in conjunction with the relevant Observers' Manuals and the HSpot Users' Guide.
HSpot 6.0 is our routine operations version of HSpot for the OT2 Call for Proposals. A further slough of changes have been made to HSpot relative to the final OT1 Call version (5.3.2). There has been a careful optimisation of the newer, second-generation observing modes. At the same time, some updates have been made in the Spot Core that have been incorporated in these releases. Between versions 5.2 and 6.0 there have been numerous intermediate releases that astronomers did not see; often these patch specific functionality needed by the instruments in their Expert User mode that may have no impact on the astronomer save to give him a better understood and calibrated instrument and to allow the HSC to test changes in the code thoroughly before the are released to users. Many of the changes in these intermediate versions affect only the software specific to the HSC and ICCs such as the Mission Planning System, or the proposal processing, which the proposer will never see, but which are essential to the success of observations.
Between the 5.3.1 version of HSpot and 5.2.3 no less than 27 problems were fixed, or updates applied. Most were fairly small changes were required to bring HSpot in-line with in-flight reality, as the modification, or deprecation, or inclusion of observing modes requires other, related changes in HSpot. Some of the changes were relatively complex to implement and required interation over intermediate versions to ensure that they are correct. HSpot 6.0.0 incorporates some 14 further updates.
No attempt is made to describe every single HSpot change. Here we describe only the changes that will have a significant effect on the way HSpot works or that will be obvious to the user.
For each change, the problem or change request number is given (prefixed by "PHS-SxR" to say that it was raised on the Proposal Handling System), the title of the Bug Report or Software Change Request and brief details of its resolution and effects on HSpot.