Parameters of selected ground-based observing stations palObs
All characters in " c" up to the first space are checked; thus an abbreviated ID will return
the parameters for the first station in the list which matches the abbreviation supplied,
and no station in the list will ever contain embedded spaces. " c" must not have leading
spaces.
IMPORTANT – BEWARE OF THE LONGITUDE SIGN CONVENTION. The longitude returned by palOBS (and SLA_OBS) is west-positive in accordance with astronomical usage. However, this sign convention is left-handed and is the opposite of the one used by geographers; elsewhere in PAL the preferable east-positive convention is used. In particular, note that for use in palAop, palAoppa and palOap the sign of the longitude must be reversed.
Users are urged to inform the author of any improvements they would like to see made. For example:
typographical corrections more accurate parameters better station identifiers or names additional stations
" c" is used to determine the observing station to use. " c" if n==0. Unchanged if
" n" or " c" do not match an observing station. Should be at least 11 characters (including the trailing
nul). " ident" including trailing nul. " ?" if " n" or " c" did not
correspond to a valid station. Should be at least 41 characters (including the trailing nul). Differs from the SLA interface in that the output short name is not the same variable as the input short name. This simplifies consting. Additionally the size of the output buffers are now specified in the API and a status integer is returned.