There are a number of tools you may find useful in the process of preparing and conducting your observations with BIGCAT. Links to many of them can be found on this page (Note that this page is under construction, and is currently being updated. If you think something is missing please let us know.)

Scheduler WebApp

The Scheduler can be accessed here.

The BIGCAT Scheduler WebApp is designed to organise all of your scheduling material prior to observing with the ATCA. It allows you to group scheduling material by project (observing code) so that schedule materials can be easily shared between different members of a project team.

For documentation on using the Scheduler for preparing your observations, see here.

RF calculator

The RF calculator can be accessed here.

The RF calculator allows you to experiment with the placement of your 4 digitised bands (2 in the case of L/S band) within the larger receiver bandwidth. Note that for the 16cm (L/S) and 4cm (C/X) band receivers, the placement of the digitised bands is fixed, since they span the full receiver bandwidth.

You may find this useful in scheduling your observations, especially if you are planning spectral line observations since you should aim for any high resolution zoom bands to fall within one sub-band.

Sensitivity Calculator

The sensitivity calculator can be accessed here.

The sensitivity calculator may be useful in proposing and planning your observations. It will provide an estimated RMS noise level and brightness sensitivity for any given instrumental setup and observing conditions.

Other tools

For a list of other tools you may find useful (weather monitoring, array monitoring, coordinate conversions etc.) please see the ATCA observing page.