Daily Reports
Contents
Feb 8th, Tuesday
15:45-21:00; Angel: DAQ started and tuning with 48/7/54 bad KIDs for ar1/ar2/ar3. No evidence of correlated spikes in the noise spectra for all arrays. Tau(225 GHz) between 0.20 and 0.25 throughout the shift with some spikes. Pointing on Uranus (1.5, -11.6), larger in elevation than expected. NIKA2 mirrors deployment re-checked. Best focus -1.0 mm. Pointing corrections are stable at this position. Beam sizes: 12.9"/18" because of a slight ellipticity; beam shapes were quite reasonable. Good atmosphere stability: ~2 Jy/b at 2 mm. Checking pointing corrections (6 values) in ~70 < Az. < 120 deg, and ~45 < El. < 70 deg. We get corrections <Az.> = 3.2 +/- 1.4 and <El.> = -8.9 +/- 3.0. Refocusing and checking stability (~1-2 Jy/b at 2 mm). Science observations started with project 110-21 (2 reps. on NGC1333-C7). Then, 2 reps. on B213E (GASTON). Even more stable after sunset. The shift was finished with the observation of target WB89-793 of project 137-21. Stuck scans: 20220208s122 and s159.
21:00-03:00; Longji: We start the shift with a series of pointing, focus, and calibration scans on Uranus and a skydip [Beammap on Uranus: 20220208s191; calib1scan: s192; skydip: s193]. After that we made 2 repetitions on NGC3938 for IMEGIN (160-16). We started observation on COSMOS for N2CLS (192-16) at midnight. The opacity from the tau meter was slightly spiky at the beginning of the observation but became stable after 23:00, with values of ~0.23. The beam and focus were also stable throughout the shift.
Feb 9th, Wednesday
03:00-09:00; Corentin: Started with pointing on 1055+018, 2 reps on COSMOS project (little glitch of the tau for one scan) and finally another pointing. Moving to project nikaw-21 --> skydip [20220209s25] on 1418+546 because of the burst of opacity but then tau stayed stable ~0.23. Moving to project 199-16, pointing on 1418+546 and 6 reps on PSZ2G087 (18/24 --> 24/24 COMPLETED). Focus on 1633+382 and then 2 reps on PSZ2G084 (16/22 --> 18/22). [Retuning at 07:30: bad KIDs 36/5/41 for ar1/ar2/ar3]. Last pointing and moving on PSZ2G084 because it was the closest from the pointing source: 1 rep (18/24 --> 19/24) and I launched another rep but there was a failure with array 2 so the scan was canceled (need to update the README and put 19/24 instead of 20/24). [At 08:50 the arr2 crate went down suddenly; ./control.py 192.168.1.160 crateColdReboot didn't work. Crate 2 restarted from PSE538: OK. DAQ restarted, retuning, bad KIDs 41/5/49 for ar1/ar2/ar3. Resuming observations].
09:00-15:00; Julien: Shift started by a technical issue with the array 2, followed by a power problem, all quickly solved (by 8:20 UTC). First project was nikaw-21 project toward NGC7027 (pointing, focus) to do calib_1scan on NGC7027, MWC349, and CRL2688 [scans 20220209s86, s87, and s88]. Good conditions, very stable (<2 Jy/beam peak-to-peak baseline variations and tau ~0.2). Moving to project 109-21. Several focus/pointing on 1757-240 to get a good beam, 1 repetition of B68 observation blocks, already getting low. Back to nikaw-21, doing poiting/focus/calib_1scan on Mars [s126]. Pointing/focus on 1749+096. Changing to project 109-21, pointing on 1923+210, then 2 repetitions on source L694-2, 1 pointing, 1 more repetition on L694-2. Opacity increases to ~0.4, so moving to project nikaw-21, trying to do pointing/focus on NGC7538. Repeated difficulties (too large and elongated beams), probably related to unrelaxed antenna which is likely to be heated by the Sun considering the clear weather.
15:00-21:00; Hélène: Rough start with distorted, but moderately large beams on 0316+413. The first 2 hours were devoted to multiple point-and-focus sequences away from the sun, with a skydip [scan s160] and a calib_1scan on three secondary calibrators (MWC349, NGC7027, and CRL2688 [scans s177, s178, and s179]), and on Uranus [scan s187]. Meanwhile, the antenna relaxed enough. Switched to program 122-16 (single source L1521e) for 4 scans at 60"/s and 2 scans at 45"/s. The beams were of better quality on the nearby pointing source (0439+360) than on Uranus, with FWHM ~ 17 to 18" at 2mm, and the focus was stable at -1.43 to -1.41 (according to the IDL RTA results). Signs of moderate anomalous refraction, acceptable sky rms (4 to 6 Jy/beam), tau of the order of 0.3 (maybe slightly too high for this program, the scan quality will need to be checked before charging the time). Relatively large pointing corrections, up to -8" in elevation. Then L1521e got too high, above 75 degrees. Switched to program 137-21 for 75 min on WB89-288. Uncertain focus (from -1.43, got to -0.64 and -1.03 in two successive focus sequences). Good stability (sky rms ~ 2.6 and 0.8 Jy/beam at 2mm in the first two scans), tau decreasing from ~0.3 to ~0.25.
21:00-03:00; Matthieu: After finishing the script of project 137-21 started during the previous shift, I performed calibrations on Uranus (pointing, focus, beam map, calib_1scan [scans s234, s235, and s236]). I then observed the NGC3184 of the IMEGIN project for 55min. I then switched to the COSMOS field and integrated (with small interruptions for pointing/focus) until the end of the shift. Overall, the weather was good with tau oscillating slowly between 0.25 and 0.2. It was a great night!
Feb 10th, Thursday
03:00-09:00; Emmanuel: [07:25: retuning, bad KIDs 44/5/45 for ar1/ar2/ar3; skydips: scans 20220210s25 and s69]
[Angel: At ~06:30 Emmanuel noticed that the beam size was about 17.3" x 19.1" at 2 mm and 12.1" x 18.9" (ar3; for unknown reasons, PIIC-QL monitor1 was deactivated sometime in early morning) after a good/stable focus corrections. He tried with two additional sources with similar results. After notifying us, we checked for anomalies in the temperature of the back structure/quadrupod/ambient, among others, and we found no apparent reason to explain this effect. The atmosphere was nicely stable. A similar incident was reported by Emmanuel and Aishwarya on past Feb. 7th, same observing slot, with very low opacity and good stability. It's quite curious because this is precisely the time slot when the telescope is most relaxed. I took over from Emmanuel this morning and asked Salvador about the anomaly. He rechecked everything with the same conclusions. Following his suggestions, we inspected the main dish surface looking for dew depositions in the lower half that could induce beam distortions (according to the experience of Juan Peñalver). We found no evidence of such a thing. Focus and pointing on strong sources were checked again, even past sunrise. Pointing and focus corrections were quite stable, but the beam elongation remained: the best beam size got after that was about 17.5" x 18.3". We decided to continue with science projects. All your suggestions that could help to explain/fix this issue are welcome.]
09:00-15:00; Julien:
[calib1scan on MWC349, NGC7027, and CRL2688; scans 20220210s93, s94, and s95]
15:00-21:00; Jean-Francois:
21:00-03:00; Nicolas: Uranus focus/pointing.
[Retuning at 21:05; bad KIDs 47/7/46 (ar1/ar2/ar3). DAQ on ar2 crashes at 21:50 in the middle of a beam map. Crate 2 restarted from PSE538. OK. DAQ restarted, retuning: bad KIDs 44/5/48].
Relaunched the beammap after this, everything went smooth. Then calib_1scan on Uranus, skydip. Around 22h50 LT, switched to project 110-21: NGC1333-C7 is just nearby ! Nice beams during the pointing on 0333+321.
Feb 11th, Friday
Feb 12th, Saturday
Feb 13th, Sunday
Feb 14th, Monday