Creating and viewing the Nightlog

The nightlog is a software generated text file, summarising the observations over the night. This file is created when the pipeline sees the first data of the night, and a one line entry for each frame is added as it is reduced by the pipeline. The file is in your reduced ($ORAC_DATA_OUT) directory, and has the name UTDATE.nightlog, where UTDATE is obviosuly the current UT date (eg 20000915.nightlog). If you stop and re-start the pipeline, and any frames are processed twice, they get two entries in the night log file.

During the day, after you finish observing, a nightlog file is automatically created in your raw ($ORAC_DATA_IN) directory, containing the whole nights observing. If the file in your reduced area gets into a mess, you can create the one in your raw area showing the observations so far. In a new xterm window, issue the oracdr_cgs4 command to setup the pipeline, then use something like: oracdr -log sf -skip -resume -from 1 NIGHT_LOG to create the nightlog file. A full version containing the whole night will be created here during the day anyway, overwriting any part-night one you leave there.

Nightlog files are best viewed by stretching an Xterm window to be at least 132 columns wide, then simply using more to scroll through the file.