OPAL Tutorial

This tutorial is intended to help first-time users become familiar with the OPAL user tools. It consists of a set of excercises to do using OPAL that will show you all of the steps involved in preparing and submitting a proposal. You can use OPAL at any time to set up proposal files. If OPAL is 'open' for proposals, you can submit a dummy proposal and then withdraw it prior to an application deadline.

The tutorial should take about 30 minutes to one hour to complete. Please ask if you are unsure about anything. For all OPAL enquiries email: atnf-opal@atnf.csiro.au.

Home Page

1. Go the OPAL home page (http://opal.atnf.csiro.au). Take a minute to look at the user links on the left-hand side and to read the information on this page.

2. Click on the 'about OPAL' link located at the bottom of the page. Check that your browser is one of the supported browsers. OPAL supports Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Registration and Login

1. If you have not yet registered as an OPAL user then go to the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'Register' and fill in the requested information. Enter a chosen password that will be easy for you to remember. Then click on the user link to ‘login’ and follow the instructions.

Cover Sheet Editor

1. Go to the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'Cover sheet editor'.

2. Click on the link to ‘create a new cover sheet’.

3.  Click the ‘expand instructions’ link to read some OPAL help information for cover sheets.

4. Select one of the ATNF telescope facilities and fill in the information requested. For this example, enter yourself as the principal investigator. You may also choose to add one or more of your collaborators as the CoIs but note that if you later submit the proposal any CoIs listed will receive an email about the submission.

5. When the cover sheet is completed, save it as a local file to a disk on your own computer.

6. Return to the home page and use the cover sheet editor tool again to load in the cover sheet file you have just saved. Make some changes to the cover sheet and save it again as a file on your local disk.

Source List Editor

1. Go to the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'Source list editor'.

2. Look at the information given under ‘expand instructions.’

3. Use the Source List Editor to create a new source list for approximately six sources.

4. For sources with standard names (e.g. NGC 1313, VX Sgr), try loading in the positions directly using the NED and SIMBAD name resolvers.

5. Convert the source positions between equatorial and Galactic coordinates and vice versa.

6. Create a couple of extra columns and add in your own information.

7. Use the select options to select and delete some of the rows in your source list.

8. Save the source list to an OPAL format file and/or to a ATCA Sched-catalogue file.

9. Go to the OPAL home page and load in your saved file. Make some changes to it and save it again.

10. If you wish – load in an ATCA-catalogue format file that you have brought with you.

Observations Table Editor

1. Go to the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'Observations table editor'>

2. Select the telescope facility - use the same telescope as for your cover sheet. Look at the ‘expand instructions’.

3. Fill in a couple of rows in this table by manually entering the source positions and other fields.

4. Now load in your saved source file – then complete the other information.

5. Use the select options to duplicate or delete selected rows in your table.

6. Save the observations table to your disk.

7. Go back to the home page and load in your saved files. Edit it further if you wish and resave it.

Preview Proposal

1. Go the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'preview a proposal'.

Use the browse button to locate and enter in the file names for your cover sheet, observations table and science justification. The science justification is prepared outside of OPAL and saved as a pdf file. For now you can use any pdf file.

3. Click on the preview button to see the full proposal in pdf.

4. Save the pdf file to your disk.

Submit Proposal (available when OPAL is open for submission)

1. Go to the OPAL home page and click on the link to 'Submit a proposal'.

2. Load in the filenames as for the proposal preview Use the ‘submit proposal’ button to submit your proposal to the ATNF.

List and Access Proposals

1. On the OPAL home page, click on the link to 'List and access proposals' to see a list of all proposals submitted with your name included as an author.  

2. Download the files (from the OPAL backend) for the proposal you have just created.

3. Make some minor changes to the files.

4. Use the ‘update proposal’ option to replace the proposal with a later version.

Search Proposals

1. On the OPAL home page, click on the link to 'Search proposals'. This will bring up a search form for the cover sheets of proposals allocated telescope time.

2. Fill in the form as you need. For example if you enter 'C10' in the ident field the search return information for all proposals that have proposal numbers C1000, C1093, C1049 etc.9:44 AM 8/06/2009

Further Practise

If you wish – try creating another full proposal. Generate a cover sheet and observations table and submit them with your pdf file as a new proposal. Look at the listing of your submitted proposals.

Withdraw proposals (available when OPAL is open for submission)

Withdraw any of the practise proposals you have submitted during this tutorial! You may withdraw proposals at any time up to the proposal deadline.

 Users Guide

Have a look at the OPAL Users Guide. All the things you have tried out are explained in the guide.

Jessica Chapman
Last updated: June 2009