QUESTION:
How do you know where to look for what you want to observe from KAO?

ANSWER from Ted Dunham on October 23, 1995:
 The first thing is that you need to know what things you are 
interested in finding out about.  Let's say, for example, that you are
interested in how stars form.  Then you would want to find a list of
places where people think stars are forming.  These lists have been
made up over the years based on observations with ground-based telescopes.  
You would read books on the subject, and look at journal (professional 
magazine) articles.  These books and articles would have lists and charts of
the sky showing how to find the star forming regions.  You might do some 
ground-based observations of your own on objects that look promising.  Then 
you might decide that what you want to learn will be best done by looking 
at the brightest region (easiest to see) or the closest one, or maybe some 
other one for some reason.  At this point, you would know where this place 
is on the sky and you could work out a KAO flight plan.

On the airplane, you need to have a chart of the sky that shows the
stars you can see with normal light.  The star forming region itself might
be totally invisible, so you will have to mark down on the chart where
it is too.  Then you have to put the visible stars in just the right place
on the TV screen for the tracker camera so that the star forming region
is right where your instrument on the main telescope is looking.  Then
you get to make the observation.

Sometimes there isn't a list of objects of the kind you are interested
in finding out about.  Then you have to take on the job of making such a 
list.  This is a big job.  It's a good thing we can write these things
down so other people can read them and not have to figure these things out
over again!