CAT Observing Checklist

Peter's version of Julia's take on Bernie's slightly expanded copy of JohnJohn's list

Observer: ____________

Date: ____________

These instructions are for Dewar 8 only! For instructions for dewar 6, see Julia's checklist.

Before Leaving Berkeley!

Target times. Get the twilight information from this page. If at Lick, check the printed calendar. During the summer, it's not corrected for DST! That is, if summer, add an hour to each of the times in the calendar.

  1. ____________ 12-degree dusk
  2. ____________ 12-degree dawn
  3. ____________ Dinner: 5 PM winter (= PST in effect), 6 PM summer (= PDT in effect)
  4. ____________ Target time of first exposure (probably a B star). Should be a bit before dusk, unless you have your times wrong or the person planning the run enjoys wasting telescope time.
  5. ____________ Target time to start trying to point: dusk - 35 minutes, or well before target first exposure
  6. ____________ Target time to do ThAr and K: dinner + 30 minutes
  7. ____________ Target time to start flats: dinner - 45 minutes (or much sooner if more flats or longer flat exposures)
  8. ____________ Target time to skin CAT: (6) + 10 minutes
  9. ____________ Target time to fill dewar: (7) - 60 minutes
  10. ____________ Target time to finish exposing: dawn + 10 minutes

Everything make sense? (Flats should mostly happen over dinner.)

  1. _______ Copy target times to rest of checklist

Time 9: _________

Camera room: opening up
  1. _______ Fill CCD dewar first, to give most time for thermal relaxation. Correct dewar?!
  2. _______ Open collimator cover door (swings down), insert mask (with cross-hairs oriented right way, instructions on mask).
  3. _______ Open prism covers: swing 1 up, slide 2 out, store in safe place.
  4. _______ Carefully open grating cover from behind. Gently.
  5. _______ Turn off lights, leave. Gently.
  6. _______ Check CCD temperature: ~ -136 for dewar 8.
CAT room: computer setup
  1. _______ Start data taker: in new xterm, hizcat.
  2. _______ Start photon integrator: desktop background menu, showmidpt.
  3. _______ Change observer name: Z, 3, A.
  4. _______ Open logsheet.
    1. _______ In new xterm, ssh to plato.
    2. _______ Run logsheets to get to right dir. Or just cd /u/user/planets/logsheets/.
    3. _______ Copy most recent logsheet or open pre-set one.
    4. _______ Update header with info on current run.
  5. _______ Open camera controls: in new xterm, hamit.
Slit room: prep
  1. _______ Look around for image rotator or any other weird stuff that's going to be in the way
  2. _______ Warm up iodine: switch in back, "Run/Stop" button in front. Is T climbing? Remember that we're starting at room temp as measured in C
  3. _______ Remove clear plastic aperture plate cover, if it's there. Probably isn't.
  4. _______ Turn on fan to Medium.
  5. _______ Lights off, leave.
CAT room: Focusing
  1. _______ Get focus settings in camera controller:
    1. ______ filter to clear (1)
    2. ______ lamp to Th-Ar (5)
    3. ______ decker, aperture plate to focus (a)
  2. _______ Change to focus params in data taker:
    1. _______ Integ. Time (B) to 20 sec
    2. _______ Window size (D) to 1000 rows by 1851 columns, origin 0 97.
    3. _______ Binning (E) to 1 by 1
    4. _______ Obs. type (F) to Normal fast
    5. _______ Recording (G) to not recorded
    6. _______ Object Name (I) to focus
    7. _______ Start exposure (R). Th-Ar "A line" should appear at about 760, 800. Looks like this (FIXME real image): 
                    @
                          *
                           *
                          *
                      * *

		.
	      .


             A
      To increase the row number of the A line by one, increase the height setting by 8.9 units. To increase the column number of the A line by one, increase the grating setting by 1.1 units.
  3. ______ Run focusing program
    1. ______ In new xterm, ssh plato, focus to change to focusing dir (or just cd /u/user/planets/focus), idl
    2. ______ Run it: IDL> foc,/catpc,/hi,[/plt,/mark]
    3. ______ Focus pos must be bigger than 500000
    4. ______ Tweak grating and height as instructed by program, until lines are in boxes
    5. ______ Extra credit: Note focus FWHM. Nudge the “CCD Focus” setting back and forth, +/- 2, to minimize FWHM.
  4. ______ Recording (G) to disk. Save 1 focus image.
  5. ______ Close IDL
  6. ______ Update logsheet with grating, height, CCD Focus, FWHM, and an entry for the focus exposure.
  7. ______ Copy the focus image from catpc (should be /data/d1.ccd) to /net/plato/u/user/planets/thar_archive/DDmonYY_d8thar.ccd.

Time 7: _________

CAT room: Start Flats

(The (B) column is for the beginning of the night and (E) is for the end.)

  1. ______ (B) ______ (E) decker, aperture plate to 640:5.0 (O like Oooooopen)
  2. ______ (B) ______ (E) Window size (D) to 1700 rows by 1851 columns, origin 0 97.
  3. ______ (B) ______ (E) Recording (G) to disk!!!!
  4. ______ (B) ______ (E) Object Name (I) to wideflat
  5. ______ (B) ______ (E) On catpc (not plato): cd focus to get to the focus directory, idl
  6. ______ (B) ______ (E) Then: IDL> autoflat, number=30, /time. The number parameter may vary if time is short; anything more than 10 should be OK.
  7. ______ (B) ______ (E) Enter 20 and 2 for bg12 and bg13 exposure times. The data taker will report an integration time of 20000s = 333.33 m. This is OK.
  8. ______ (B) ______ (E) Look at first flat, make sure it's OK. Not saturating (no flat top in column cut)? No iodine lines? (Yes to either of those is bad.)

Time 3: _________

Cafeteria: Eat dinner. Hooray!

Time 6: _________

CAT room: Flats Done
  1. ______ Update logsheet with info on flat exposures. If you are taking N flats, there should be an entry for exposures 2—N+1 and one for exposures N+2—2N+1.
Thorium-Argon Exposure
  1. _xxxxx_ (B) _xxxxx_ (E) Note that it is OK if the iodine cell is unfurled for the ThAr exposures; the ThAr lamp is later in the optical path.
  2. ______ (B) ______ (E) decker, aperture plate to 640:2.0 (L), same as for observing
  3. ______ (B) ______ (E) filter to clear (1)
  4. ______ (B) ______ (E) lamp to ThAr (5).
  5. ______ (B) ______ (E) Object Name (I) to thar
  6. ______ (B) ______ (E) Integ. Time (B) to 3 sec
  7. ______ (B) ______ (E) Start exposure and let it read out
  8. ______ (B) ______ (E) Update logsheet.
Iodine Exposure
  1. ______ (B) ______ (E) In the slit room:
    1. ______ (B) ______ (E) Check: is iodine cell warmed up?
    2. ______ (B) ______ (E) Move iodine cell into optical path.
  2. ______ (B) ______ (E) Back in the CAT room:
    1. _xxxxx_ (B) _xxxxx_ (E) decker, aperture plate still at 640:2.0 (L), same as for observing
    2. ______ (B) ______ (E) filter to bg13 (3)
    3. ______ (B) ______ (E) lamp to Polar Quartz (8).
    4. ______ (B) ______ (E) Object Name (I) to iodine
    5. ______ (B) ______ (E) Integ. Time (B) to 22 sec
    6. ______ (B) ______ (E) Read this whole step! Start exposure, then pause after 2 seconds!
    7. ______ (B) ______ (E) filter to bg12 (2)
    8. ______ (B) ______ (E) Resume (u) exposure and let it finish.
    9. ______ (B) ______ (E) Check for iodine lines. At centered zoom level 1, should see lines on top but not on bottom of image.
    10. ______ (B) ______ (E) Update logsheet with an entry for the iodine exposure.
Wrap Up
  1. ______ filter to clear (1)
  2. ______ lamp to No Lamps (1).
  3. ______ Start the pointing program: coords -poco no -focus cat/new from an X terminal.
  4. ______ Load /u/user/starlists/jj_subgiants.list for the starlist.

Time 8: _________ (or hold off a bit if conditions dubious)

Slit room: Skin the CAT
  1. ______ Open the telescope. Graphical instructions on wall next to controls.
    1. ______ Turn Control Panel on
    2. ______ Open housing: wait for both green open lights. Takes a while. No need to hold down button.
    3. ______ Open shutter. Hold switch until open. Can do while housing opens.
    4. ______ Open shutter cover. Don't skip this step, dumbass! Little red box next to light switch. Hold button.
    5. ______ Open siderostat cover. Only do once housing is done opening! No need to hold button.
    6. ______ Use the two dimmer switches to turn off panel lights.
  2. ______ Turn on tracking
    1. ______ Press key-button in to turn on power
    2. ______ Toggle switch up for tracking on
  3. ______ Open ceiling portal thing: plunger down and twist.
  4. ______ Photon integrator
    1. ______ Bottom switch on
    2. ______ Slowly dial voltage up to 705 (V: 125 to 150).
    3. ______ Top switch on: whine noise should start.
    4. ______ Check that gain dial is at 0.1 (not 1, 10, 100).
    5. ______ Pull plunger (left of aperture plate) out. Listen for whirr noise.
  5. ______ Open cover for little light-bouncer mirror. Swing into place just over iodine cell.
  6. ______ Lights off. Should be completely dark. Leave.
CAT Room: Observing Prep
  1. ______ Click “CAT” on the bottom menu bar of the guider computer. (Not needed if guider camera controls already open.)
  2. ______ Optional: double check slit alignment. Either turn on a light in the slit room, or just use the sky if it's bright enough. See if the reticle points to the smallest slit. Is it centered?

Time 5: _________

Observe! No checklist can help you here. But, that being said ...
  1. ______ Check midpoint time of first exposure matches output of date -u on your computer
  2. ______ Check for iodine lines every so often! The cell can crap out.

Time 10: _________

CAT room:
  1. ______ Autoguider switch off
Slit room: Tracking and Integrator Shutdown
  1. _____ Tracking off
  2. _____ Stow telescope to HA = 00:00:00, Decl = 30:00:00 (use paddle, not readout controls! May have to be done from CAT room)
  3. _____ Key-button to power off tracking panel
  4. _____ Close slit room ceiling portal
  5. _____ Swing small light-bounce mirror out of way, close cover
  6. _____ Turn off integrator:
    1. _____ Plunger in
    2. _____ Slowly dial down voltage to zero
    3. _____ Two power switches (top and bottom) to off
Slit room: Re-Skin the CAT
  1. ______ Turn up two panel light dimmer switches
  2. ______ Close siderostat cover (middle button!)
  3. ______ Close shutter (hold switch until closed)
  4. ______ Close housing (two steps, wait for both red lights)
  5. ______ Close shutter cover (little red box)
  6. ______ Power off control panel
CAT Room: ThAr and Iodine again
  1. ______ Iodine exposure as at beginning of night
  2. ______ ThAr exposure as at beginning of night
  3. ______ Slit room: Move iodine cell out of path, heater off, fan off. Lights out.
Prep for flats
  1. ______ Put notes on two slit room and two camera room doors: “Flats, stay out until 10 AM”
  2. ______ Email mhtechs@ucolick.org with an equivalent message.
CAT Room: Flats again
  1. ______ Start flats routine as before
  2. ______ Update logsheets with prospective exposures
  3. ______ In logsheets, run IDL> jjlogchecker

Finally

Sleep! Did you put up the signs? And email mhtechs?

The Morning After

Camera Room: Close up
  1. ______ Refill the CCD dewar
  2. ______ If last night of observing, close up the spectrometer
    1. ______ Close grating cover, gently, from behind
    2. ______ Close prism covers: slide 2 in, swing 1 down
    3. ______ Remove crosshair mask, close collimator cover door

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