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Daily Reports

Oct 11th, Tuesday

16:30-21:00; Angel: Rainy and foggy after the weekly maintenance. Slight snowfall. The atmosphere was quite unstable after that, but mean tau has continuously dropped; still being unstable. Preparing setup for NIKA2.

21:00-03:00; Stergios, Angel: Unfortunately, tau raised above 1 at the beginning of the shift; still being unstable. At ~02h tau dropped up to ~0.7, with clear signs of relative atmospheric stability. DAQ of NIKA2 was started at 02:30 using the run72_tp_old_sweep.ini file ('old sweep': see Monday's report: https://publicwiki.iram.es/DailyReportsNika2Pool101022) as run72.ini file in order to check the instrument, main scripts, and quick data reduction before the science observations. Best of resonances (on-sky) gave the following bad/total KIDs relations: 138/1055 (Ar1), 123/573 (Ar2), 88/1056 (Ar3).

Oct 12th, Wednesday

03:00-09:00; Quang, Stergios, Angel: We carried out some tests with NIKA2, starting with a small pointing session (110 < Az. < 305 deg., 32 < El < 71 deg.) after a good focus. Pointing corrections, averages and rms are given in the table below.

A couple of calib_1scans on Uranus was obtained (20221012s20 and s42), as well as a skydip (s32). Atmosphere instabilities increased gradually during this test session. Regarding telescope and instrument, everything seems to be ready for starting the observations. At 05:50 we switched to EMIR. At about 06h and up to the end of the shift, Quang observed on behalf of the EMIR backup project 051-22. The tau from taumeter fluctuated a lot from 0.6 to 1.7. Tau at ~100 GHz from MRTCAL was stable: ~0.1.

09:00-15:00; Matthieu (on hold), Angel: Mean opacity was about 0.6 and 1.2 over the shift. Project D02-22 was observed with EMIR-E0 (6 reps. on LH206718 and 4 reps. on LH93597). Noncompatible opacity for EMIR-EO observations (Wsw) after ~12:45. We parked the telescope at ~13:00. Dense fog and light rain after that.

15:00-21:00; Gianluca (on hold): Bad weather, telescope stopped.

21:00-03:00; Angel: Opacity dropping to ~0.7, relatively stable. Continuing with EMIR backup programs, waiting for a qualitative improvement. Starting observations with 1 rep. on field C3, setup 1, project 018-22. Tuning with setup 2. One rep. on the fields C1, C2, and C3. Mean tau_225GHz was about 0.75 with some noticeable spikes, despite tau at ~100 GHz from MRTCAL being < 0.25 (=> pwv < 8 mm in the line of sight). Switching to project 043-22 at ~02:30 for observing the pre-stellar core L1544.

Oct 13th, Thursday

03:00-09:00; Quang: Today, as part of the NIKA2 pool, I observed project 043-22 using EMIR. The tau from taumeter was quite good for that: 0.5 to 0.8.

09:00-15:00; Guilaine: Observing with EMIR project 083-22. Do first pointing/focus on Mars, then pointing on a source close to the target. Observing source 8556-high, problem with the wobbler system, scan 176 canceled. Then do 8 repetitions. Focus on 0923+392. Observing source 18857-high, 3 repetitions, pointing with oscillations (due to anomalous refraction?) PWV is also rising, reaching 7mm. Scan 322 canceled and stop at 12:25UT.

15:00-21:00; Gianluca: Observing with EMIR between 6:00PM to 8:00PM CET (project 019-22). Between 8:00PM-9:30PM we moved to project 083-22, but weather conditions were unstable after pointing+focus, and we stopped the observations.

21:00-03:00; Stefano + Angel: the sky improved. YAY! We switch to NIKA2. YAYAYAY!!! Tuning OK. KIDs lost (old sweep!): Ar1 73/1055, Ar2 125/573, Ar3 64/1056. Starting pointing/focus; peak to peak sky along the timeline +/- 2 Jy at 2 mm. Tau(225) drops to ~0.2. We start 199-16 and observe 5 repetitions of PSZ1G080 using the old sweep. At 22:30 UT we perform a whole calibration sequence: skydip; then move to Uranus for pointing, focus, pointing, beammap (old sweep, can nr. 20221013s309), calib1scan (scan nr. 20221013s310), pointing, focus, pointing, SWITCH TO NEW SWEEP, beammap (new sweep, scan nr. 20221014s1, note that box "I" is lost! We do what we can, and we decide to proceed anyway so to have at least one beam map take with the new sweep - although in precarious conditions - to be processed before the weekend), SWITCH back to OLD sweep.

Additional notes:
a) The make-imbf of the beam maps delays the PIIC QL analysis of what comes later (10 minutes delay after scan nr 309). I need to wait nevertheless, because I have to properly prepare for the next important beam map.
b) We switch between old/new sweeps by copying the relevant ini files onto run72.ini. We have chosen to keep the numeration 72 for both sweeps, since they belong to the same cryo-cycle. Therefore we have run72_tp_old_sweep.ini and run72_tp_new_sweep.ini (tp=total power).

Problem with DAQ at ~00 UT:
When restarting the DAQ in the process of switching to the new sweep, the DAQ had difficulties to start. It showed different symptoms: it had lost many KIDs and boxes; it was not reacting to commands; it died at start. After many attempts, we finally managed to recover, but box "I" remained almost completely lost. We tried with both the new and old sweep and these problems were there in both cases. When loading the new sweep, the DAQ is also very slow at measuring KIDs resonance frequencies. Number of lost pixels (new Sweep, box "I" lost): Ar1 154/1061; Ar2 8/581; Ar3 60/1077

Today's sun show:

Oct 14th, Friday

03:00-09:00;

09:00-15:00;

15:00-21:00;

21:00-03:00;

Oct 15th, Saturday

Oct 16th, Sunday

Oct 17th, Monday

Oct 18th, Tuesday