06 Aug 2005 Edition Before leaving Laramie ---------------------- Get LN2 from Chem stockroom before 4:00 pm (~2 l/day; dewar is 35 l) Get observatory and vehicle keys; check gas level Get food, clothes, music, backup media, manuals, log, ruler, research, coordinates from arapaho:/d4/wysch/README.coords Skycalc printouts Before entering the observatory ------------------------------- Unlock the door! General Observatory Power Up ---------------------------- Plug in internet connection attached to back of rack in control room. Turn on switches in breaker boxes in control room and entry way. Plug in UPS near control room rack: yellow & black plugs with yellow tabs. Get computers up and running: WIROPrime, Claudius, Horatio. Plug in encoder (yellow wire) for the dome south rack. Turn on switches in dome breaker box (if you plug in the encoder after this step, then you will hear an electronic hiccup). The ringing sound? An inflated bag used to hold the primary in place! Service platform and the PrimeFocus camera: ------------------------------------------ Lower telescope to the service position, and connect the power cord. Beware that the outermost plug-in (the one at the end) of the power cord with the flat extension cord is inactive!!! Use the middle plug-in if not already plugged in. Plug in camera power (into the north grey box, not the south metallic-colored one). Cool down instrument. Tall nitrogen gas tank on dome floor has two valves. The top valve should be opened normally. The valve facing you needs to be opened by turning CLOCKWISE! The liquid nitrogen tank on the service platform has two valves. Open the top valve normally, and toggle the vertical switch to open. Both the nitrogen gas and liquid nitrogen gauges should be around 5. If switching LN2 dewars, remember to release pressure by opening dewar valve. Close the two tanks in reverse sequence. Remove rubber tubing between dewar and camera (when warm!). Remove camera cover. Remove harness that bolts telescope down to platform, if still present. Turn on camera. Control Room and the PrimeFocus camera: --------------------------------------- Claudius runs the WIROPrime camera, WIROPrime controls the filter wheel, and Horatio operates the telescope (observer/iiiXXXX). Plug in weather box (power and phone cord). On Horatio: su date MMDDHHmmYY.ss (in Mountain time! Note that though Congress changed the DST methodology in 2007, the computer still expects daylight saving time to begin on the first sunday in april and to end the last sunday of october; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time) exit %start (look at IO Tech Micro 488 box on bottom of rack--it should flash twice and then the first two slots should blink red; the hanging monitor now shows the proper UT) [ If you get more than one "BIG ERROR", or things just seem wacky, like the hanging RA/DEC/UT monitor is blank, do %ps -ef | grep gps %ps -ef | grep track and kill all such occurrences ('kill -9 XXXX' etc). Then cycle the IO Tech Micro 488 box, and redo clock/start. 'refresh' also can update monitor] Flip on the power switch for the electronics on the table. => 8 red lights and 1 green power light (below) on Parker CompuMotor Double-click on 'wiro prime' icon (on the WIROPrime windows pc) Click 'connect' on gui interface Click 'Initialize motors' The first three red lights should now be off; five on If lost, click 'initialize filter wheel' (eg displays 0 instead of, say, '1 U') To change filter, pull down filter you want, and hit 'go'. It's best to only make incremental changes equal to one or two filter slots. 'voodoo' should be run from the linux machine Claudius (observer/iiiXXXX). e.g., 'voodoo > & /dev/null &' from a terminal (now can also use voodoo icon) set 'automatic display', 'open shutter', 'write to disk', 'beep' read temperature set temperature goal: parameters->temperature->-110->apply (note updated temp) To ensure the filter wheel and software are correctly functioning, grab a partner and two walkie-talkies. One person steps through various filters with the software and reports the apparent filter state, while the person in the dome reports the apparent color of the filter in the slot. The sequence is U: metallic purple B: blue V: green R: orange I: metallic blue-green; has a tiny crack in it 7598 + 7661: 'grass' green 8132: blue on one side 8199: dark purple (almost same shade as 8615 + 8685) 8615 + 8685: metallic purple If you cannot agree with your partner, it can help to slight 'jog' the filter wheel position until the software correctly recognizes the appropriate filter. Maintain this job offset throughout the night. Windscreen and Dome ------------------- Opened upper windscreen using the box on the wooden deck (ensure power switch on). Lower the lower windscreen, but to be safe leave about 6-10 feet up--the pulley system relies on the weight of the screen, and at the end there is very little weight so serious slack can be created in winch and may cause system to derail. Rotate dome shutter such that it is in the initialization location. Align the hook on the dome track just above the rightmost edge of the control box. Open shutter (if rain clouds are not evident). Put switch back to "remote." Telescope Power Up ------------------ Turn on power on (brown) south stand (switch is on lower r.h.s.). Then hit the green "on" button on console. Third right button should be "in" for "local". Initialize Telescope & Dome --------------------------- Use dome telescope controls ('manual') to align RA and Dec 'index' arrows. Open mirror covers using controls on south pier (there are two). Ensure all "remotes" are now remote/computer. On dome or Horatio computer: % zero; zenith; index % g % dome init % dome on Check to see if telescope slewed to 'zenith' marks. NOTE: always initialize both dome and telescope 'simultaneously'. Ensure that zero; zenith; index works, otherwise you will get screwy and random pointings. Pointing and Focus ------------------ If you are the first observer after an instrument change, you may need to type 'col' on Horatio to wipe out any prior pointing offsets. Go to a bright star in the Almanac (use correct epoch!!) Center star to [1077,1024] by e.g. 'nn 200' to slew 200" north [ Note that Team WySH has for historical reasons adopted [1024,1077] centering... ] Then type 'icol' so that the computer always uses this offset. Note that if you go to service position (e.g. check on filter wheel), the telescope seems to lose track of its pointing!! If the telescope does not track well, and stars appear as smeared lines, then you should go wiggle the wires leading into and out of the box on the floor next to the dome extension cord you plug in near the dome rack. Focus on a bright star near your source. First check every 500 units from -2000 to +2000 from the nominal setting, then decrease increments to 200 units when near focus setting. Remember that each focus jog requires 2-3 seconds! General power down ------------------ Reverse of above Do not leave CCD camera plugged in during day (lightning). Stow dome with shutter pointing west. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRAF/DS9 on linux machine (claudius) -------- Make sure that ds9 is running before you take an image; have voodoo automatically display images. Catalogs -------- Catalogs should be created in Horatio:/home/observer/wiro/catalogs/. I've placed a landolt, gamma ray source, and WySCH catalogs there. On Horatio do "catalog file.cat" and "showall" and "follow #" The command line command (ie. not using "follow") for new position is fixed RA DEC follow (in decimal hours and degrees). Sky flats --------- Use the "fixed RA 41. follow" command to point at a place in the East (sunset) or the West (sunrise). I'm using Dec=41. to make things simple. Try RA such that the Hour Angle is about 3 hours, and then keep trying long (sunrise) or short (sunset) exposures until you get the right counts. Then remember to move the telescope after each frame! Try incrementing Dec by 0.02 Morning: B->V->R Evening: R->V->B You want the counts to be in the -15,000 to -20,000 count range. The saturation level is at 65,536, but the software flips to negative numbers after reaching 32,768 (so 32,769 actually shows as -32,767). Data backup ----------- Either burn CDs/DVDs, sftp to kiowa, or sftp to ute and load onto external hard drive (DVDs hold 5 GB; use either +r or -r version) -Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 (on WIROPrime) -> Easy CD Creator -click and drag <700 MB of data to lower r.h. window -hit 'record' -'track at once' and 'finalize CD' (use 16x speed) -xcdroast on Claudius -xcdroast -n -Create CD/DVD -Master Tracks (left column) -de-select 'Display directories only' in File/Directory View window, so that you can see the data files -Drag & drop the desired files to the Session View window. You want to only take 60-70 images, in order to not go beyond the 700 Mb CD limit -Select the 'Create Session' tab (just above the File/Directory View window) -Ensure that you are no higher than ~695 MB in order to not exceed space limitations -Select 'Master to image file' (center-left column of stuff) -Select ok on pop-up window -Close pop-up window -'Write Tracks' on far left column -Drag & drop tracks from right side to left (track layout) -Click on 'Accept Track Layout' -Choose 'Write Tracks' button on the bottom -Put CD in burner (the black drive) *You will get an error message but if you mount the CD and look at it, the data should be there. -external drive -log in as root -'mount -v -t ext3 /dev/sda /work' -sftp from Claudius -umount /work Tip: Turn to "manual" before moving to ensure the monitor says that the telescope will move correctly. The dome will still move under manual; the telescope will move once you turn manual back to computer. Or simply type 's' to stop telescope, hit 'follow n' to see airmass, then hit 'g' to slew. Collimation ----------- Move main observing platform to be able to reach the collimating screws. Push "inboard" and "up" and white buttons simultaneously. Jog focus (slowly!) until unfocused, so much that you see donuts with the four primefocus ring struts appearing in the donuts. Your goal is to tweak the three collimating screws until the donut is symmetric. You may find that using 'e' within IRAF/IMEXAM is a helpful way to view the light distribution. To "pull" light from, say, the west to the east, tighten the eastern screw. Alternatively, you could loosen both the SW and NW screws to "push" the light away from the west towards the east.