Weekly Checklist of Astronomers of Duty

This is page http://www.iram.es/IRAMES/mainWiki/AstronomerOfDutyChecklist maintained by CK.

• At the begin of the AoD week:

  • Make yourself familiar with the present system status by reading the status page, previous reports, and by asking staff, in particular also Juan Penalver. Which backends are available ? Had there been receiver related problems lately ? When was the last pointing session ?

  • Check the observing schedule. If there are any TBD intervals, please contact Clemens Thum to clarify their usage.

  • Do test observations after the Tuesday maintenance period (T02-09): Let the operators tune to the frequencies of the following project. Do a quick calibration and pointing. Connect the spectrometers and do a quick position switched test observation (onoff).

• During the week:
  • Speak with the observers and operators to check and discuss any problems. Do not hesitate to contact other staff.

  • Get an idea of the pointing situation. How large are the observed offsets ? Are pointing & focus affected by anomalous refraction ?

  • Update the status page.
  • Take a look at the cable spiral, telescope tower, and receiver cabin at least once during the AoD week.

• The weekly report to be send at the end of each AoD week, should address the following topics. Please add eps files to your report, to better explain any problematic spectra, etc.. Better start writing the report already on the first day of the AoD week, and not at the very last moment. Report what is not working, but also changes to the positive. There is no need to repeat any daily operator reports. The report shall be send to aodreportlist AT iram.es .

  1. Pointing/Focus

  2. Receiver

  3. Backend

  4. Computers

  5. Software: pako, mira/odp

  6. T02 results and very brief summary of observing projects

  7. Other remarks

• The above list assumes that you are familiar with the system:
  • Computers, Printers
  • Basic working of pako, odp/mira, class, greg
  • Basic security rules (Operators, Juan)
  • Observatory information for the guest observers
  • Basic IRAM web pages, wikis.