Where_are_my_CPU_cycles_going?

There could be many answers, but watch out for heavy use of calls to aips++/CASA code.

In your case all of the CPU time is eaten up by CASA, while actual tree evaluation barely comes into it. Looks like it's the gazillion calls to Measures in AzEl that are doing you in. You may want to develop a separate script that solves for AzEl values as a function of time, and stores the solutions in a table. Then you can run the script that makes use of AzEl values without having to make calls to the aips++ CASA libraries.

See also:

["How do I get profile statistics on my tree's behaviour?"]