NAME

Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar - NorthStar format catalogue parser

SYNOPSIS

    $cat = Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar->_read_catalog(\@lines);
    $arrref = Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar->_write_catalog($cat, %options);
    $filename = Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar->_default_file();

DESCRIPTION

This class provides read and write methods for catalogues in the format used by the NorthStar proposal submission system. The methods are not public and should, in general, only be called from the "Astro::Catalog" "write_catalog" and "read_catalog" methods.

METHODS

_read_catalog

Parses the catalogue lines and returns a new "Astro::Catalog" object containing the catalog entries.

    $cat = Astro::Catalog::IO::Northstar->_read_catalog(\@lines, %options);

Supported options (with defaults) are:

    telescope => Name of telescope to associate with each coordinate entry
                 (defaults to JCMT). If the telescope option is specified
                 but is undef or empty string, no telescope is used.

NOTES

The NorthStar (http://proposal.astron.nl) catalogue format is:

  TargetName  hh:mm:ss  dd:mm:ss system  misc

TargetName can not include spaces. The "system" should be "J2000", "B1950", "Jxxxx", "Bxxxx" or "GALACTIC".

The misc field will be stored as a comment.

GLOBAL VARIABLES

The following global variables can be modified to control the state of the module:

$DEBUG: Controls debugging messages. Default state is false.

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA

AUTHORS

Tim Jenness <tjenness@cpan.org>