NIKA dry run organization

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Goals of the run

1. Check that gaps in NCS data streams do not occur
2. Debug the IMBFITS formating so that they are at last produced without errors, and finally allow real time processing.
3. Test for the first time operations with only IRAM Granada personnel at the Telescope and NIKA Grenoble team using remote control.

Organization Plan

The dominant components of the goals 1 and 2 do not necessitate sensitive KID, so no cool down of the instrument is necessary. However the full instrumental setup for observations must be operational; this includes the electronic chain and real scans of the telescope commanded via PaKo.

• Remark: We could test the new network cabling installed in the cable spiral room for the future control of the NIKA2 compressors, keeping the electronics at its storage location and making it run to control the detectors acquisition via the network from there. But we have decided to lift it up in the cabin hence mimicking real observations as much as possible with a warm cryostat, since the problems we had may be related to the network setup we used.

We will debug the IMBFITS step by step. People involved in the NIKA data & IMBFITS making & checking (Albrecht, Juan MP, Xavier, Alain, Robert, Samuel, and possibly Walter and Nicolas P) communicate via this wiki page to establish very clearly the main problems and actions to do to solve them (see tables below), and possibly use the data we currently have to start debugging, so that we are as ready as possible for May 7.

• Remark: We need confirmation that the warm KIDs with the observation setup planed for this dry run will produce usable (in math. sense) values, otherwise this might cause somewhere problems.

After this dry run, we will make the status, and determine a date for another short test run (e.g. begin of June ?). Hopefully for this one only the problems that necessitate valid KID data remain (e.g. KID flags). In that case this short run would be cold.

Dates

Telescope time booked for the NIKA Dry run test:

• Wednesday May 7, from 11:00 to 15:00.
• Monday May 12, from 12:00 to 16:00.

They appear in the official telescope schedule under the project name is T21-13 (please update this wiki if you see a mismatch with the telescope schedule).

Table of IMBFITS problems to solve

The NIKA IMBFITS have had problems since their first creation (2^nd test run, Oct 2010). The latest exhaustive list of problems dates from the run 6 (June 2013) processing and has been tabulated on a dedicated wiki page; most of them are still valid. For reading convenience we gather here only the most important problems that need to be solved with the May 7 dry run.

• Remark: Note that problems 4, 5 & 6 are most probably related.

Step by step guide for the Dry Run

NIKA hardware preparation

Coming soon...

Data acquisition

• NIKA team:

• IRAM computer group:

Observing session

The observations will be done using the account created for the 1st NIKA pool:

$ ssh -X nikaw-13@mrt-lx1 (ask I. Hermelo for the password)

To open the PaKo version for NIKA type:

$ gopako
$ pakodisplay
$ pakoNIKA

Once PaKo is open, you can run the following script:

PAKO> @ observe_DryRun

The script mimics a typical NIKA session of ~2 hours of duration:

PAKO> SET PROJECT t21
PAKO> SOURCE Uranus
PAKO> @ cont_pointing
PAKO> SET POINTING 5 5
PAKO> @ cont_focusZ -1.8
PAKO> SET FOCUS -1.5
PAKO> SOURCE 3C454 /cat *
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 0 -45 
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 0 +45 
PAKO> @ cont_lissajous 2 
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 45 -45
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 45 +45 
PAKO> @ cont_lissajous 4  
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 90 -45  
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 90 +45  
PAKO> @ cont_lissajous 6
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 135 -45  
PAKO> @ cont_onthefly 10 20 135 +45
PAKO> @ cont_lissajous 8

Online pipeline

In order to mimic as much as possible a typical NIKA session the online pipeline must be running. The instructions to start the online pipeline can be found here.