RPS2 is the graphical software system for designing HST Phase II observing programs. It is used to create and submit proposals which will schedule on the telescope and make efficient use of your allotted telescope time.
Everyone with internet access can use RPS2 in some form. Currently, the system is only configured to run in unix environments (see See Available RPS2 configurations for more details). However, RPS2 can also be run remotely and displayed back to a graphical device which supports XWindows (e.g., VAX Workstations, Macs). For those who do not have access to a graphical workstation, a command line version is available. For more information, see See Alternate Ways to Run RPS2
If you encounter any problems while installing or running RPS2, you should contact your Program Coordinator (PC). The PCs maintain a file of advisories so that known problems and recommended workarounds can be accessed easily. This advisory list is available from the World Wide Web page for Phase II Proposal Development:
You can also access the advisory list by clicking on the "Help" button in the RPS2 User Interface.
RPS2 8.0 has some changes compared to version 7, but the look and feel is basically the same. Here is a brief list of some of the changes:
Some programs (usually large ones) take more than a half hour. This can be frustrating if you need to iterate many times to resolve problems. Here are some tips that can help you run RPS2 faster:
One of the purposes of RPS2 is to help you use your orbit allocation as efficiently as possible. One way RPS2 does this is through the graphical timeline found in the structure section of the Visit Analysis Report. Although this is a good model of what will happen during your observations, it is not an exact timeline of the observing events.
Some limitations are due to conceptual simplifications built into RPS2. One important example is "alignment" overhead. Alignments are generally groups of exposures that use the same aperture and pointing, but the detailed rules are much more complex. As a simplification, RPS2 does not display the alignment structure, so it cannot show you where the alignment overheads actually occur. In RPS2 all alignment overhead is distributed evenly among the exposures within the alignment. If you need help optimizing your proposal, talk with your PC.
The major graphical limitations are a consequence of the fact that HST is in low earth orbit; therefore, target viewing time varies over the course of the year. Unless you explicitly specify timing special requirements, you are not guaranteed the precise structure given in the Visit Analysis Report. Generally, this is not a problem, but it can be if timing is critical. For instance, after viewing the RPS2 output, you may assume that your exposures will be taken every 96 minutes for ~50 minutes. But your visit might actually be scheduled when the target is in or near the Continuous Viewing Zone (CVZ), in which case the exposures would be taken back-to-back over a shorter period of time. Another example: exposures that appear in the same orbit in RPS2 may not end up back-to-back because the exposures may be scheduled in orbits which are partially blocked by the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). If exposures must be done back-to-back, you must use the SEQuence NON-INTerruptible special requirement. Using timing special requirements can increase overhead and decrease the scheduling flexibility of your visit, so you should use them only if scientifically justified. (See the Phase II Proposal Instructions for information regarding timing special requirements.)
While RPS2 has, at its heart, the same software that is used at STScI to evaluate and prepare a proposal, not all of the STScI processing capabilities are available. Therefore, there are some situations in which RPS2 displays a visit as schedulable at a particular time when it is actually not schedulable, and other situations where the converse is true.
For instance, RPS2 does not currently have the capability to test for guide star availability. Therefore, a visit which appears to be schedulable in RPS2 may in fact not be schedulable due to a lack of appropriate guide stars for the target. This can only be determined after your Phase II proposal has been submitted and proposal preparation is performed at STScI.