GISMO

The Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2mm Observer (GISMO) is a bolometer camera for the IRAM 30m telescope. It has been build by Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland under the lead of Johannes Staguhn.

Overview

GISMO consists of 8x16 pixels with super conducting transition edge sensors (TES). The TES are read out by time domain SQUID multiplexers built at the National Institute for Standards (NIST), in Boulder, Colorado. The nominal bandwidth is centred at 2 mm (150 GHz). The is shown in Figure 1. Pixels are spaced by 13.75" and the telescope HPBW is 16.7". The sensitivity is about 14 mJy sqrt(sec) . The field-of-view is 1.8'x3.7' . Two standard observing modes are offered, Lissajous curves and on-the-fly scans. Both work in total power, without switching the secondary. An automated pipeline merges the GISMO data with the telescope data streams to create FITS files which are automatically processed by the reduction software crush to create logs, pointing results, and a first quick view of the data. Typical overheads for single science targets on the sky are 60%. The relative flux stability is about 8%. GISMO has been available to observers since the winter semester 2011/12.

The quoted sensitivity is the median sensitivity of the crush default reduction using the data of the pool runs of April 2012 and 2013. See the reports of Bruni et al. 2012 and Hermelo et al. 2013 below.

GISMO bandpass filter measured in the lab (transmission function extracted from 2mm_BP_angles_Jul06.xls of J.Staguhn, 31-Oct-2013)

Call for proposals

GISMO is offered again to the community the winter semester 2013/14:

• Call for observing proposals with the 30m

• Guidelines to estimate observing times.

• Report on GISMO performance based on the 4th pool run (Hermelo et al. 2014, in preparation).

• Report on GISMO performance based on the 3rd pool run (Hermelo et al. 2013).

• Report on GISMO performance based on the 1st pool run (Bruni et al. 2012).

Documentation

• GISMO Software Operational Manual by Steve Maher and Johannes Staguhn (Dec 2013)

• GISMO NCS Software Interface and FITS File Description by Steve Maher, Attila Kovacs, Albrecht Sievers (Dec 2013)

Publications

1. Dwek, Staguhn et al. 2011 ApJ,
   Star and dust formation activities in AzTEC-3: A starburst galaxy at z = 5.3

2. Arendt et al. 2011 ApJ,
   The Radio - 2 mm Spectral Index of the Crab Nebula Measured with GISMO

3. Capack et al. 2011 Nature,
   A massive proto-cluster of galaxies at a redshift of z~5.3

4. Dicker et al. 2009 ApJ,
   90GHz and 150GHz observations of the Orion M42 region. A sub-millimeter to radio analysis

5. Benford, Moseley, Zmuidzinas 2009 Journal of Physics
   Direct detectors for the Einstein inflation probe

6. IRAM Newsletter 2/2009
   GISMO - The Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2 Millimeter Observer tested at the IRAM 30m observatory

7. Staguhn et al. 2008 Journal of Low Temperature Physics, 151, 3, 709
   GISMO, a 2 mm Bolometer Camera Optimized for the Study of High Redshift Galaxies

Support teams

• Overall coordinator:

  • Samuel Leclercq (IRAM/Grenoble, <leclercq@iram.fr>)

• GISMO support team:

  • Johannes Staguhn (GISMO PI, <johannes.g.staguhn@nasa.gov>)

  • Elmer Sharp
  • Steve Maher
  • Dale Fixen
  • Attila Kovacs (crush)
• IRAM/Granada support team:

  • Carsten Kramer (station manager, <kramer@iram.es>)

  • Israel Hermelo (bolometer pool manager, <hermelo@iram.es>)

  • Albrecht Sievers (friend of GISMO, <sievers@iram.es>)

  • Manuel Gonzalez (heterodyne pool manager, <gonzalez@iram.es>)

  • Nicolas Billot (30m scheduler, <billot@iram.es>)

GISMO How-to's

• Pool Preparation provides information on the observing modes offered as well as examples of the scripts that you need to prepare to observe your project.

• Observing Session provides an example of a typical session at the 30m telescope with GISMO.

• Data Reduction provides some basic examples to reduce GISMO data using CRUSH. For more detail please see the CRUSH documentation.

• Frequently asked questions provides answers to some commonly asked questions.

5th GISMO pool (April 2014)

The 5th GISMO pool will take place from the 1st to the 11th of April 2014. Observations will be carried from a dedicated pool account (Israel Hermelo will provide login information).

Pool projects and observers

For information about the accepted projects and the observers at the 30m please go to:

• 5th GISMO pool organization.

• Pool observers for the April 2014 run

Progress

The progress of the 5th GISMO pool can be followed via:

• Pool data base

• External GISMO Nexus log with slow updates

• Internal GISMO Nexus log with fast updates

Previous observing runs

• 4th GISMO pool (October/November 2013)

  • 4th GISMO pool organization.

• 3rd GISMO pool (April 2013)

  • List of accepted projects.

  • Pool observers for the April 2013 run

• 2nd GISMO pool (November 2012)

  • List of accepted projects.

  • Pool observers for the November 2012 run

• 1st GISMO pool (April 2012)

  • List of accepted projects.

• 5th alignment run (March 2012)

  • Go to the 5th run Wiki page

• 4th test run (April 2011)

  • Go to the 4th run Wiki page

• 3rd test run (April 2010)

  • Go to the 3rd run Wiki page

• 2nd test run (October 2008)

  • Go to the 2nd run Wiki page

• 1st test run (November 2007)

  • Go to the 1st run Wiki page

Author: Israel Hermelo (IRAM 30m bolometer pool manager)

email: hermelo@iram.es

Created: 2013.10.25

This page is maintained by IH, CK, SL and the GISMO team

Last update: 2014.02.11