TOUR: THE QUERY TOOL

Contents of the query screen

The banner and control screen
	Contents from top to bottom are as follows: The QT logo. when the QT is working, such as carrying out a search of the database, it indicates as much by animating this logo. Search, Fetch and Exit buttons. Search carries out a database search on the parameters set elsewhere in the window, Fetch MSB retrieves an MSB selected from the list, Exit Exits the QT (so don't touch this unless you're certain). Note the green light in the search button: if you have altered any constraint settings (in Edit...constraints) this will either be orange or red, and flash at you. Current info box. On a Drama-enabled system (such as at the summit) this box contains current values of the CSO taumeter, the current airmass and (not yet automated) a current seeing indication. Clicking "Set Default" copies values from this window into the search criteria text fields described in the next section. Weather map. The current weather from the MK weather centre. You can switch between infrared and water vapour images under the "View...Satellite image" menu item. HST and UT.
Search criteria entry boxes
	Country: used to filter for country of origin. Also has tick boxes for Discretionary time, Engineering and Commissioning etc. In general, PATT observers should leave this set to "Any" because the semester ID will cause only PATT programmes to come to the top of the list. Atmosphere: Tau, seeing (arcseconds) and J-band sky brightness. Enter the current values here (you may also use Set Default in the Current Info box to copy tau in from there). Clouds: Three relatively straightforward buttons. Note that UKIRT has adopted a definition of "Thin Cirrus": Cirrus is thin if it results in guide trace variations of less than or equal to 20%. Moon: Fairly obvious. Note that the database actually knows the whereabouts of the moon and will filter automatically.
Administrative and time-related entries
Project ID. This is the same id (e.g. u/06a/j5 or u/06b/32) as used when storing your MSBs to the summit database. Use this only when you are certain that the weather conditions are good enough and your programme can therefore be done. It prevents all other database projects from being listed. Semester. Use this (e.g. 06a) when weather conditions are insufficiently good for your own programme and you therefore need to retrieve MSBs from the queue. Hour Angle. Select minimum and maximum hour angle ranges. Normally the database will enforce sensible defaults; use these boxes only to restrict the range (e.g. to avoid objects in the west due to wind). Airmass. Similarly, you can restrict the range of airmass. Do not use this when executing queue programmes unless there is good reason to do so. Observation date and time. This is filled in automatically, but you can alter these fields to see what will come to the top of the queue at a given future date and time. Duration. If you want to restrict the length of MSBs for some reason. Do not use this in normal queue observing; the database knows how much time remains in the night and will not show MSBs whose lengths exceed the remaining time.
Instrument selection
If nothing is set here, all instruments are assumed to be available when executing the search. Otherwise, click to select instruments which are available.
Project and MSB lists
After executing a queue search, the lefthand section will show an ordered list of projects. The righthand screen will show individual MSBs, either for all projects, or for a selected one depending on what has been clicked on the lefthand side. Clicking on a column heading will sort by that column; this is only normally useful in UKIDSS sky survey observing, where the schedpri column (third from the left) is used to determine which is the next best MSB to observe. In PATT queue operation, the "priority" column should be used.

Menus

View Menu
	Columns...: controls which columns are displayed in the MSB list. See next panel. Log...: not used in normal observing. Satellite image: select from either infrared or water vapour images here.
	The column selection window. As a general rule it is safe to switch off the bottom half dozen entries here.
Edit menu
	Cut, copy, paste: Not used in normal observing (and are in any case greyed out). Constraints: as shown, this can be used to prevent the database filtering MSBs on administrative parameters and observability. If you need to use this then you are probably missing something or the MSBs you expected to come up have strange parameters. Therefore, don't use this without consulting your TSS.
Help menu
	Index:  useful online help, similar in content to the current document but more detailed in places. About: Version information
Calibrations menu
	A list of calibration observations. Selecting one of these places it in the "Deferred Calibrations" panel of the MSB execution screen.