Data display

A new sequencer command was implemented and documented for all imaging instruments that allows the an image to be displayed either according to the orientation on the detector (i.e., the column direction up), or use the world coordinates in the header and display the image such that North is up. This later is specifically included as part of the target acquisition script for slit spectroscopy with ALFOSC where often the instrument is positioned at an angle different from the default (e.g., because the observation is done at the parallactic angle, or the slit needs to be aligned with specific features in the field) and it is difficult to recognised the field when comparing to a finding chart which has the standard orientation with North up.

There were various comments and complaints from the staff about where the graphics displays of the post-processes would appear on the screen of the observing system computers and what it would do with the cursor. Specifically, certain windows would first briefly appear in one place before appearing somewhere else, and/or appear on top of the normal observing system windows, while the focus of the mouse would be `taken' from the user, or the cursor would have to be moved out and back in to a window already being used when a graphics window would appear. At least part of the solution to the mouse behaviour might be the specific settings of the window manager, while the graphics display behaviour might be something which needs to be managed in the post-processing calls (to pyraf). One thing to specifically look at is if it is possible to keep the graphics display (at least for a given task) the same such that it can be moved but stays (or reappears) in the place where it was left. For the quickspec post-processing systems it would also be good to have an option where every time a new spectrum is extracted, the graphics display with the last spectrum is removed before a new display is opened (or even better, let a new spectrum replace the last spectrum in the same display).