This Cycle 21 release of APT contains the following changes which may be helpful in preparing Phase II Programs:
- Total Adjusted Exposure Time reported - For those exposure specifications that result in multiple exposures (e.g. number of iterations greater than 1), APT now reports the total exposure time for each exposure specification (e.g. if the exposure time is 1000s and the number of iterations is 2, the total adjusted exposure time is 2x1000s=2000s).
- Target coordinate uncertainties now required for COS and STIS - The RA and Dec uncertainty fields are no longer defaulted to 0.1". If you are using COS or STIS, you must populate these field so that APT can reason on the size of the uncertainty when making acquisition recommendations.
- GALEX catalog now easier to find - If you want to overlay the GALEX catalog on your field in the Aladin display, you will find the catalog available on the main page of the Aladin Server selector (the pop up you get when you click on File > Open in Aladin).
- Fixed Target Description entry easier - We have changed the way the Target Descriptions are entered to make it easier to see all your options at once.
The following changes were made at Phase I time, but may also be helpful in preparing your Phase II:
- Giving feedback - We have added a Feedback button to APT so you can send comments directly to the APT developers as you think of them while you are working. Note that detailed questions on your Phase II Proposal should still be sent to your assigned Program Coordinator.
- Context Sensitive Help is now on all the time - Any field name in a form that is dark blue (and the cursor becomes a ? when you hover over it) can be clicked on to take you to the appropriate entry in the Phase II Proposal Instructions.
- New and improved target importer - Instead of a single (HST specific) target import file format, APT now can interpret a variety of file formats (CSV, Tabbed, whitespace, VO Tables) and attempt to interpret column header names intelligently. For some files you may just be able to import, but there is documentation if you need it.
- Spatial Scan visualization - If you are planning a spatial scan observation please try out the two visualizations. There is the target path on the detector (available on the exposure special requirements form where you specify the spatial scan parameters). And there is the aperture position extremes plotted on the sky (in the Aladin display for exposures with spatial scans).