- Method 1:
Download the script (xplore), and move it somewhere in your path with the execute bit turned on, e.g. in csh notation and assuming you have a ~/bin in your $path:wget http://carma.astro.umd.edu/carma/xplore/xplore chmod +x xplore mv xplore ~/bin rehash
You will also need tcl, tk (wish), and blt installed as packages. This should work on Linux (tested on Fedora and CentOS; yum install blt) and MacOSX (10.4, tested using fink's versions of tcl/tk/blt) You can also manually install the blt package and set the BLT_LIBRARY environment variable to point to its library. -
Method 2:
Download and unpack the The gzipped tarball, which has a bootstrap version of the calibrator files included. Follow the instructions in README.txt. NOTE: Mac OSX 10.6 users: Download and unpack this tarball instead and follow the instructions in xplore/README.
To run: execute xplore, and update the calibrator flux files by clicking on File...Update. This will download the appropriate files in your $HOME/.xplore_support/ directory. You can change the flux wavelength band displayed with View...Wavelength Band.
In this figure the user clicked on the yellow square just left
of the center field, representing 3C273. A graph of the flux as
a function of time will then show up.
Additional Hacks:
- To make CARMA the default observatory, edit the ~/.xplore_suppport/tel_par.txt file and make CARMA the first in the list.
- For solar system objects, the MIRIAD "planets" program is used to provide a low accuracy ephemeris (via cgi-bin at UMD)
A mirror of the xplore software should be found at the UMD CARMA Observing Tools page.