Manuals

OmegaCAM User and Template Manual

The instrument user manual to be used for P92 Phase II. No changes wrt P92 Phase 1 version except a 5s reduction in overhead for first offset in a science template (Sect. 3.4.4). Template manual remains unchanged.

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P92 Phase I.
NOTE the User Manual updates regarding readout and filter setup overheads (Sect. 3.4.4). Last readout of an OB comes free of charge, and filter setup between templates is 30s shorter.

The instrument user manual to be used for P91 Phase II. No changes except a new subsection 3.7.5. regarding wind mast vignetting. Template manual remains unchanged.

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P91 Phase I.

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P90 Phase II.
NOTE the User Manual updates regarding IA and offset overheads (Sect. 3.4.4): overhead for IA was reduced from four to three minutes.

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P90 Phase I.
NOTE the User Manual updates regarding overheads and PSF (Sects. 3.4.4, 3.7.1).

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P89 Phase II.
NOTE the User Manual updates regarding flatfielding and overheads (Sects. 2.9. and 3.4.4.).

The instrument user manual and template manual to be used for P88 Phase II and P89 Phase I.
NOTE the User Manual updates regarding ADC and overheads (Sects. 3.2.2. and 3.4.4.).

The Survey Area Definition Tool - SADT

For the preparation of survey observations with VST the use of the Survey Area Definition tool is encouraged to define the survey layout. The tool and its documentation (cookbook and video tutorial) are available from:

• SADT User Manual

The Phase 2 Proposal Preparation Tool - P2PP

The service mode observation for the ESO public survey requires to schedule a large number of observation blocks every year. This requires a p2pp tool which can handle as well complex observing strategies.Therefore new concepts of scheduling containers have been included in P2PP version 3 tool, which has to be used for preparation observations with the VST.

• User Manual for P2PP Version 3.2

Video tutorials and practical examples how to prepare survey OBs can be found on the following page:

• P2PP Tutorials

Related Documents

• Characterisation of the visitor Halpha filter NB_659 (10 MB pdf) used by the VPHAS consortium for their Public Survey. The report was prepared in 2012 by Dr. Mark Neeser from ESO with input from the Instrument Operations Team and the VPHAS consortium.
• Illumination correction report by the OmegaCAM consortium, accepted version from July 4, 2012. This report describes the strategy to correct the OmegaCAM photometric calibration for the illumination variations within flat field exposures.
• "New Observing Concepts for ESO Survey Telescopes" by Bierwirth et al. 2010, SPIE presentation
• Two more detailed documents on the OmegaCAM detector system can be found here (Workshop on Scientific Detectors for Astronomy, June 20 - 24, 2005, Taormina, Italy) and here (SPIE Symposium, May 24 - 31, 2006, Orlando, Florida), courtesy of the ESO Optical Detector Group.
  
• The original Calibration Plan and DFS User Requirements are also available.