UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OBSERVATORIES / LICK OBSERVATORY

Computing Facilities for Observers
Observer Accounts Observers have access to a number of computers on Mount Hamilton, joined by fast wide and local area networks which make connections nearly transparent. Many disk partitions are cross mounted for convenience.

We are connected to the outside world through a T1 link. A secure firewall surrounds all mountain computers. Access from outside the firewall can only be gained through special permission or from an approved Keck/Lick Remote Operations computer.

The observer's account name on all machines is "user." Ask any of the telescope staff for the current user password.

Machines used for data-taking and/or data-reduction have a /data directory for the storage of raw data, a /workspace directory to accommodate files produced during reduction, and a ~user/observers directory under which users may create a personal directory for storage of routines, starlists, and other small files they anticipate using during current or future runs.

With the exception of the small files in the ~user/observers directories, we do not provide observers disk space beyond their runs. Any files, including raw images, left on disk beyond your run are liable to be deleted. We can temporarily store data for a few days beyond the run by special request, though all data is archived on-line at http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/data/ for easy access so storing data on-site beyond the run should not be necessary.
Guest Net
Connections
The mountain has a number of IP addresses reserved for visitors who bring their own computers and wish to connect to the net via an ethernet cable or WiFi. Contact any of the telescope staff for the current WiFi password.

You may: a) use DHCP
b) ask one of our technicians for help in getting hooked up.
Data Archiving Data acquired using facilitiy instruments are archived in FITS format to http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/data/. Archived data are password protected. If you don't have or have forgotten your archive password contact a support astronomer, sa@ucolick.org, for assistance.

Data are removed from the working disks immediately following a run. Do not move your data out of the the /data directory into another directory or subdirectory, or the automatic archiving program will not be able to archive them.

Observers may copy their data to their laptops or transfer the data to an off mountain computer during or immediately following their run. However, we strongly encourage off-mountain data access to be through the data archive system at http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/data/ rather than using scp or sftp to transfer data over our limited T1 bandwidth.

Data Reduction Lick provides IRAF and IDL for data reduction on the mountain.

Use the /workspace directories for data reduction. Please clean up after yourself, removing all the files and subdirectories youšve created when you are finished.