Table of Contents
This section describes the main updates to HSpot, relevant to all users, which have been made since the release of the final version version for Phase 2 of the Open Time Call (OT1) was made (HSpot v5.3.2). Users are strongly recommended to read this document in conjunction with the HSpot Users' Guide.
HSpot 6.0.x represents mainly incremental changes over HSpot 5.3.2 and fine tuning. The biggest change from a user's point of view is some optimisation, particularly of second generation observing modes and some fine-tuning of particularly HIFI and PACS spectroscopy modes and well as a major update of associated documentation.
[PHS-14] HSPOT fits reader does not follow FITS standards for images.
- Implication for user: This patch fixes a bug whereby the HSPOT fits reader could not deal with Herschel images which followed the FITS standard. As a consequence, it would discard extensions without data and so remove the WCS information, causing the image to be displayed without spatial or flux information. With this patch, images now display correctly.
[PHS-1666] HSPOT fails in plotting SSO path for a date close to a turning point of a beginning retrograde motion (sic!)
- Implication for user: This bug affected observers preparing observations of SSOs. The interpolation routine used was unable to deal with a change of sign in the direction of motion in R.A.
[PHS-1580] HSpot should be able to deal with deprecated mode without crashing.
- Implication for user: This bug was important for some observers who have observations in old, deprecated modes in their AOR files that cannot be read back in without HSpot crashing, meaning that such files could only be edited by hand.
This is related to two other issues that have also been fixed:
[PHS-1639] Missing constraints in an xml should be acceptable when loading AORs.
- Implication for user: This bug is only important when manipulating AOR files that have been edited to contain only the unscheduled observations of a larger dataset. If there are constraints such as follow-ons for which only part of the follow-on has been observed, HSpot would refuse to load the AOR file. Now, HSpot will skip the conflictive observations.
[PHS-1661] HSpot should be able to load only part of an AOR file when problematic AORs are found.
- Implication for user: Similar in its implications to the previous two reports and self-explanatory.
[PHS-1600] Overlay AORs from HROST on HSpot images.
- Implication for user: This is an additional functionality to help users with duplication checking. For any target you can overlay AORs from HROST on an image to see what observations have been made of and around the target. You may then consult the data for any plotted observation in the database to see whether or not it duplicates your intended science and, if the observation has already been executed, the execution details.
- Implication for user: On some occasions the process of duplicating AORs could produce a corrupted and unreadable output. This is now fixed.
- Implication for user: Significant updates have been made in the On-line help to synchronise it with HSpot and to update information.
- Implication for user: This option would fail in some circumstances due to an external configuration error. This option has been replaced with an option to print all or part of the proposal documentation as a PDF file.