To help you get the necessary calibration data in the least observing time, the planning program generates a schedule of required observations. A considerable amount of photometric expertise is built into this program, so that observers without much photometric experience can confidently adopt its recommended defaults, and obtain a plan that should be satisfactory for most photometric observing programs. At the same time, the program is flexible enough to let experienced observers design special-purpose programs.
This flexibility requires considerable interaction between the user and the planning program. The program needs information about the program stars, the calibration stars, the peculiarities of the instrument, and the requirements of the observer. This input information is described in detail below, and in the appendix on data-file formats.