1) I forgot to turn on the detectors for the first sequence of dome flats. Marco: Can you put some login into the GUI that if somebody tries to take an exposure with the detector power off, a warning dialog box appears. We have similar logic for the dark filter. Thank you.
2) The preset 5pt dither pattern doesn't seem to be working as it should. The pattern as loaded in the GUI takes 5 images. The RA and Dec offsets for the pattern are:
Position 1: 0"; 0"
Position 2: 80"; 0"
Position 3: 0"; 80"
Position 4: -80"; 0"
Position 5: 0"; -80"
This just does a 4pt dither with the first and fifth position repeated. What I think should be done is:
Position 1: 0"; 0"
Position 2: 80"; 0"
Position 3: 0"; 80"
Position 4: -80"; 0"
Position 5: 40"; -40"
so that four exposures are taken at the corners of a box and the fifth position takes an exposure in the middle of the box.
3) At the start of the night I performed the initial focus sequence in J. I then clicked on the AutoFocus Filter box so the Telescope Focus would change as filters changes. When I switched from the J filter to the K filter, the focus offset was 420 microns and not the 220 microns that I expected. Later in the night I performed a new focus sequence with the AutoFocus Filter box checked before performing the focus. When I then moved from the J filter to the K filter, the Telescope focus offset was the expected 220 microns.
4) The modification to the focus_wide script to make sure that the OBSTYPE keyword for focus sequence is "Focus" worked.
5) The RINGSS Seeing monitor stopped updating afer the first hour of observations.
6) The ECS webpage (http://ctio4lnew.ctio.noao.edu/web/Blanco/) was giving updates for the Last Record in DB but the Blanco Telescope: Current Telescope Conditions page ( http://ctio4lnew.ctio.noao.edu/web/Blanco/diagram.html) is not updating.
| Total Times | Time Observed | Time Engineering | Time lost technical | Time lost weather | Time lost other | Total Program Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-11 | 0.0 | 9.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 9.5 |
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I spent the first hour of the night showing the NEWFIRM GUI to the observers for Soo Lee's group and discussed observing strategies. Guillermo Damke was also online to learn more about NEWFIRM operations.
After showing observers the NEWFIRM GUI and start of night proceedures we began a checkout of the NEWFIRM guiders. We performed a telescope zero point at the beginning of the night at zenith. When we started to test the guiders, we moved to a field near M42. We found that the selected guide stars were at the periphery of the guide camera fields. We went to a nearby bright star and performed another telescope zero point. After this, the guide stars showed up toward the center of the guide camera fields. The important take-away from this is that if there are large slews or a large change in airmass between the zero point at the beginning of the night and the observer's target, it is probably good practice to perform a new zero point at the observer's position. Guide cameras and GMAP worked well.
After guider tests, we performed focus tests. Telescope focus is normally performed at the beginning of the night at zenith. We have noticed that some observers immediately begin their observations by pointing toward objects on the horizon. For the focus tests we started by performing a focus sequence at zenith. We then moved the telescope 15deg north and performed another focus sequence. This was done for Dec=-30; Dec=-15; Dec=0; Dec=15; Dec=30. There is an abrupt change in focus by -200 microns between images taken at zenith distance angle 45deg and zenith distance angle 60deg (Airmass change from 1.4 to 2). This needs to be documented in the observing manual.
Last part of the night was spent taking images of M83 in JHK, 1644 [FeII], 2124 (H_2), and 2168 (Br-gamma).
The seeing was excellent all night. The image quality in J was 0.6" when seeing monitor was reporting 0.53". Just for reference, 0.6" delivered image quality corresponds to a FWHM of a point source as 1.5 pixels. NEWFIRM pixels are 0.4".
Overall this was a productive night.