Electrolog: an online logsheet
William Deich · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1998
This paper describes an electronic logsheet designed to be easily connected to both existing and new instruments for the Lick and Keck Observatories. The primary motivation for such a log is to automate the recording of basic observing parameters in a form that preserves the best characteristics of paper logs: columns that can be readily annotated with text or sketches, and user choice of what data form the log. To these capabilities, Electrolog adds simultaneous viewing/editing by local and/or remote observers, who can share annotations and emendations, if desired. The log can be written out in plain text, in 'pretty-printed' PostScript, as a FITS ASCII table extension, or as a native- format dump. Either the FITS file or the dump format can be read back in by another instance of the logsheet. It is simple to splice the logsheet into existing data-taking programs. It accepts data in a variety of formats, including raw FITS image headers. As a useful side-effect, a dozen- line Tcl script can generate 'retrospective' logs form a set of FITS image files.