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At the start of the Night

You can start observations when the Sun is 10 degrees below the horizon (you can check the Sun altitude in the Tololo Environment Page). The telescope operator will let you know when you can start.

The first thing to do is to turn on Vsub (within the System Control Tab at the Observer Console). All buttons in the System Status should be green. If that is the case, you are ready to go.

It is always recommended to take a bias or test image after turning Vsub on. This image will not be usable.

The telescope operator will point to a bright start. Take a short exposure at that position using the Exposure Control Tab in the Observers Console (for example, 3s in the r filter). In observer2, find a terminal an load the program for Kent's Tools (more details in the next section) by typing:

> observer

Once the image is delivered, type

> center

This command will perform the astrometry of the field just observed and it will calculate the offsets in RA and DEC from the coordinates of the telescope. Give these offsets to the telescope operator. He will apply the corrections. You are ready to start your science program. Load your scripts and go.

Focusing will be performed automatically for every image and thus there is no need to run any focus sequence.


Source URL (modified on 06/20/2014 - 04:47): http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/content/start-Night