Daily Reports (2026/01/13-20, NIKA2 run 78, Cryo run 90)
Observers on-site: Ste B, Cheng Yu, Rubén Fedriani, Paul Law, Andrea Bracco
Astronomer on Duty: Ioannis Myserlis
Pool Manager: Angel Bongiovanni
Operators: Joaquín Santiago (day) and Gloria Liñan (night)
Organization of shifts:
03:00-09:00 UT: Stefano Berta
09:00:15:00 UT: Cheng Yu and Rubén Fedriani
15:00-21:00 UT: Paul Law
21:00-03:00 UT: Andrea Bracco
Important
Focus offsets shall be measured on Ar1
Pointing offsets shall be measured on Ar2
Pool-Account usage: Accounting of observing times
Calibration observations like pointing, focus, and calib_1scan (the latter in case of NIKA2-Pol only, aimed at characterizing the instrumental polarization) which are conducted before and during project observations are part of the project time. Note that all proposals include such overheads in the time and sensitivity estimates. This holds for total power and polarimetry observations.
Other calibration observations which are important for all projects like beam maps, skydips, or calib_1scan for absolute flux calibration may be accounted under the pool account (nikaX-YY, where X = s,w and YY = year ; nikaw-25 in this case).
- When conditions are unstable and it is unclear whether project observations make sense at all, calibrations may be accounted to the pool account.
Focus and Beam maps accounting
Please fill the Table with the Ar1,2,3 focus values as follows. At best, make one table per day.
Focus sequences (NOTE: Ar2 is very noisy and this might influence the A2 focus value)
Scans nr.
Target
Ar2
Ar1
Ar3
Pol?
Notes
20260115s2-6
3C273
0.30
uhm
out
no
started at 1.0 mm; Ar1 only marginally covered by the focus range -> re-do
7-11
3C273
out
1.31
1.54
no
started at 1.4 mm;
42-46
1757-240
out
1.22
1.41
no
started at 1.6 mm;
53-57
MWC349
0.48
1.47
out
no
started at 1.22 mm
70-74
2251+158
out
1.42
1.62
yes
started at 1.47 mm
104-108
Neptune
out
1.30
1.50
yes
started at 1.42 mm
20260117s3-7
1757-240
out
2.02
2.22
no
started at 2.1 mm (de-icing stopped 1h ago)
...?
41-45
Uranus
0.77
1.4
1.58
yes
started at 1.8 mm
58-62
Uranus
out
1.06
1.28
yes
started at 1.4 mm
64-68
Uranus
0.23
1.05
1.30
yes
started at 1.0 mm
80-84
Uranus
0.62
out
out
yes
started at 0.9 mm -> re-do
85-89
Uranus
out
1.62
1.85
yes
started 1.9 mm, outside temperature dropped to -12 C
85-89 |
Uranus |
out |
1.62 |
1.85 |
yes |
started 1.9 mm, outside temperature dropped to -12 C |
- ||
100-104 || Uranus || 0.8 || 1.65 || 1.94 || yes|| started 1.62 mm||
Similarly, if any beam maps (total power or polarimetry) are taken:
Beam maps
Scan Nr
Target
Focus
TP (99 subscans) or Pol (95 subscans)
Notes
Tuesday, 13th January 2026
9:30-14:30 UT: Maintenance time. The team arrived at the telescope, only Andrea is missing.
14:30-00:00 UT: Stopped due to high wind, fog and snow. In the afternoon we had a training session on NIKA2 observations with on-site observers.
Wednesday, 14th January 2026
00:00-9:00 UT: Still stopped. Snowing in the morning.
09:00-13:00 UT still stopped for wind and thick clouds
12:30-14:15 UT: Sky clears up a bit so we start with EMIR backup observations of project 150-25 at ~13:00 UT. This is the only project available for observations right now, even if it <15 deg away from the Sun, keeping in mind that E150 is not working. Anyway, after 1 hr the weather is getting bad again (pwv >= 10mm) and we park the telescope once more.
14:15-20:00 UT: Telescope stopped. Bad weather.
20:00-04:00 UT: Telescope parked. No night operator until tomorrow due to personal reasons.
Thursday, 15th January 2026
03:45-09:00 UT Stefano:
@03:45 we start the NIKA2 total power observations; lost KIDs: 20/7/24; tau(225)=0.27; temperature -8 C; wind 2 m/s. Stability: peak to peak sky variation along the timelines < +/- 0.5 Jy/beam on pointing scans @2mm.
- 197-25 four repetitions of CL3. Note: the first three repetitions were taken with 47 Hz sampling. No big deal: actually they'll be less affected by sky "instabilities".
- 166-25 one repetition of GC1. Lots of haze in the l.o.s. in the second scan. We do not observe 166-25 any further.
09:00-15:00 UT Ruben and Cheng (+ Stefano and Ioannis):
- calibrations: MWC349 (scan 58), NGC7027 (scan 59), CRL 2688 (scan 60), Skydip (scan 61)
- 166-25 one repetition on GC3.
- @11:15 UT we switch to polarimetry. Lost KIDs 12/6/20.
- 140-25 one repetition on Cloud D, using 2251+158 (3C454) as IP calibrator
- @13:40 the imbf of scan 92 is not being produced by the new make-imbf. We do not stop/restart it, so that the people in charge of it can directly see "live" what is happening. Meanwhile we use the old make-imbf. If in half an hour is not back, SB will stop/restart it. 15 minutes lost waiting fro the old make-imbf to produce the pointing (scan 92) file. @14:00 UT Jean confirms that he has seen that there is a problem and Stefano restarts the new mak-imbf. Back to normal.
- 140-25 one repetition of Cloud G, using 2251+158 (3C454) and Neptune as IP calibrators
@11:00 UT Andrea arrives at the telescope, safe and sound.
15:00-21:00 UT Paul:
- Finishing 140-25 with pointing and calib_1scan with 2251+158 (3C454) and Neptune
- Move to project 170-25 staying on Polarimetry.
- Pointing , focus using Neptune (15:11 UT)
- Thick fog arriving at 15:33 UT time.
- Stability is very poor +/- 50 Jy/beam and moving the telescope to parking position...
@16:00 UT little experiment, taking advantage of the poor weather:
- scan 113: normal pointing on 0316+413
- scan 114: gently knock on the cryostat with the handle of a screwdriver, at 1-2 Hz frequency
- scan 115: gently knock on the cryostat with the handle of a screwdriver, at 5-10 Hz frequency
- scan 116: caressing/sweeping the cryostat with the handle of a screwdriver
- scan 117: inserting the handle of the screwdriver between the cryostat and the ladder, such that they touch
- scan 118: same as 4., but dancing with pretty NIKA (2!)
None of these reproduced what we have experienced last week
21:00-03:00 UT Andrea:
- Bad weather. High opacity, fog and snow. Telescope stopped.
Friday, 16th January 2026
03:45-09:00 UT Stefano:
- Still stopped. Wind, snow and frozen rain in the morning.
09:00-15:00 UT Ruben and Cheng:
- Still stopped: Wind, snow and frozen rain.
15:00-21:00 UT Paul:
- Still stopped: snow and wind.
- @15:30 UT the AoD moves to Granada and will continue his work remotely.
- @17:00 UT The taumeter is frozen and marks low.
- @19:00 UT the operator cleans the taumeter
21:00-03:00 UT Andrea:
- Still stopped. Wind and frozen rain.
Saturday, 17th January 2026
03:45-09:00 UT Stefano:
- Still stopped. Wind and frozen rain.
- @07:00 UT the sky is clear. There is ice on the lower part of the primary dish, and ice stalagmites on the sub-reflector. The de-icing is on, but we have to wait for the Sun to help melting the ice.
- @07:30 UT the operator cleans the taumeter
09:00-15:00 UT Ruben and Chen (+ Stefano):
- @10:30 UT we start with TP, Lost KIDs 12/7/14 WOW; outside temperature -10 C, no wind.
- the beam/focus is still quite affected by the de-icing (stopped 1h ago), hence low-priority TP first
- 166-25 one rep of GC2
- @11:45 UT we switch to polarimetry, it takes 3 attempts and a reboot of the mmpsync server to make things work; lost KIDs: 15/6/17.
- 140-25 0.25 repetitions of CloudG. Paul realizes that the coordinates of CloudG in the catalog are wrong and different from those in the proposal. We delete the next 3 scans from the queue and put CloudG on hold until a change of coords is approved. We switch to CloudE.
- 140-25 two repetitions of CloudE.
- @15:00 UT we stop the telescope because we're in the clouds. Just in time.
15:00-19:30 UT: Paul:
- Restarting at 16:00 UT and cont. on polarimetry project 170-25
- 170-25 two reps of Tycho
19:30-03:00 UT Andrea:
- quick training with Stefano
- outside temperature dropped to -12 C, the focus changed a lot
Sunday, 18th January 2026
03:00-09:00 UT Stefano:
- ...
09:00-15:00 UT Ruben and Chen:
- ...
15:00-21:00 UT: Paul:
- ...
21:00-03:00 Andrea:
- ...
Monday, 19th January 2026
03:00-09:00 UT Stefano:
- ...
09:00-15:00 UT Ruben and Chen:
- ...
15:00-21:00 UT: Paul:
- ...
21:00-03:00 Andrea:
- ...
Tuesday, 20th January 2026
03:00-09:30 UT Stefano:
- ...
End of the pool week.