Here are some examples of cone:
stilts cone serviceurl=http://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/cone/search
            lon=56.75 lat=24.12 radius=0.8
            out=pleiades.fits
stilts cone serviceurl=http://gaia.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/cone/search
            lon=56.75 lat=24.12 radius=0.8
            verb=1
            ocmd='sorthead 10 phot_g_mean_mag'
            ocmd='keepcols "source_id ra dec phot_g_mean_mag"'
verb=1 which indicates to the service that only
    a minimal column set is required in the query result.
    
stilts -verbose
       cone servicetype=ssa serviceurl='http://archive.eso.org/ssap'
            lon=0 lat=90 radius=1.0 skysys=galactic
            omode=count
omode=count parameter means that it just counts
    the rows and columns and prints the numbers to the console.
    The -verbose flag means that (amongst other things)
    the full URL that the command used to make the query
    will be logged to the console.