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Daily Reports

Feb. 13th, Tuesday

10:30-15:00; Maintenance slot.

15:00-16:30; System check with EMIR (Joaquín); Jean's tests of the BluePill and Aleksej's tests of the wobbler system (both in remote).

16:30-21:00; Jianhang, Stefano, Antoine, Federico, Angel: tau_225GHz~0.5, wind speed about 2-4 m/s, not so stable atmosphere, but after pointing & focus trials, look quite good for EMIR backup programs. Some problems with beam switching (not-so-good behaviour of the chopper wheel; fixed provisionally by launching two pointings in a row per pointing try). We started with EMIR backup program 073-23, TMC2 and CB23 were successfully observed. At ~20h we switched to project 104-23. The first map set for target W3-IRS5 (2h) was started. InSegment tracking deviations below 1 arcsec. At 19:52 (UT) a continuous sequence of TCP/IP local socket closed/connected messages in the PCP started to appear. The queue was cancelled by Juan Luis. After the due error acknowledgment in the PCP, we launched a calibration. No more warning/error rolling messages in the PCP.

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: The observation of the first map set for target W3-IRS5 (project 104-23) was resumed by completing the scans removed from the queue before. Switched to project 152-23: line calibration on M82, REF position checked, and 5 repetitions on J0826. Mean tau_225GHz increasing up to ~0.6 with large spikes over most of the shift, very low wind speed. Light fog outside at the end of the shift.

Feb. 14th, Wednesday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: two more repetitions on J0826, then a pointing, then a repetition, which complete the project 152-23. tau>0.6 and unstable. No sources in other projects visible after the completed project 152-23 for a very long while. One more repetition on J0826 to compensate bad weather. Suspended observations and waited that weather improved (for 1.5h). Now, tau stabilized around 0.6, started 112-23 for lack of other observable sources. Done two sources (G59.78+0.07, G59.79+0.07), then pointing+focus+pointing after sunrise, then done one more sources (G59.79+0.63), only one repetition each.

09:00-15:00; Federico: one repetition completed for source G58.77+0.64, project 112-23. Changed project to 079-23 to complete the second half of the final observation of Clump_B, setup 2 (9 subscans). Completed (09 UTC). Changed configuration for NIKA2 session: initialization of the quick look pipeline terminals. Tentative pointing session on source 16041+399. First track stacked, reactivating tracking & homology. Second track was completed (10:06 UTC), testing imbFITS creation. Stopped all operations for wind, telescope moved to a safe position.

15:00-21:00; Antoine: Windy for all the afternoon. Operations restarted again at 18:15 (LT) with Nika2. Lost KIDs (a1, a2, a3: 27, 1, 31). Excellent pointing and focus on Uranus, very good atmospheric stability, tau ~ 0.3. Calib_1scan (scan 89). Then started observing source id307 of project 150-23 for half a repetition (40 minutes). Then went back to Uranus and finished with focus, launched a beam map (scan 105, sudden spike from taumeter records in the middle) and a skydip (scan 106).

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Finished two half repetitions for source id307, project 150-23 of NIKA2 pool. Changed to project 106-23 later due to the increase of opacity (tau>0.4). For project 106-23, the opacity is still good enough in the beginning (tau<0.5), but became worse in the middle of the observation. Source WB89-705 observed (scans 20240214s134-139 and 20240215s1-6). After 1:00 (LT), changed to the EMIR backup programs (project 143-23, target region1).

Today, we have beautiful sunset

Feb. 15th, Thursday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: at the start tau>0.4 and variable. Jianhang started project 143-23 for lack of other observable sources. hi-frequency data are likely useless (but anything else observable). Observed 6 repetitions of region1, with pointing and focus before, in the middle, and end. Bad weather, observations suspended at UT=4:44 with tau=0.6-1 and variable. Observations restarted in test mode at UT=5:45 under variable conditions with test focus and pointing. Program 104-23 started at UT~6:17. Started obs of IRAS18566 (the largest elevation source, all raising now). Done 5.5 maps then suspended because of wind at UT=7:33.

09:00-15:00; Federico: Operation still suspended for wind. Snowing -in addition- since 15h (LT). A thunderbolt strike triggered low-voltage circuit alarms. No anemometer records after that. Possibly the bolt affected the power supply of the meteo station. It will be checked by technical staff when conditions improve.

15:00-21:00; Antoine: Condition is still not suitable for observation, till 21h (LT). Wind gusts. Snowing.

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Operations still suspended for snow. Got an early bed at 1:00 (LT).

Feb. 16th, Friday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: Bad weather continues. Telescope parked.

09:00-15:00; Federico: 9:30h - 10h (LT) operation to restore the anemometer. Wind speed measurement restarted, but the direction indicator is still not working. At 10h, cleaned the cage of the taumeter from snow/ice. Restarted the taumeter measurement. In the meantime, telescope was rotated in from of the operation room to visually check the status of the ice on the telescope. 10:25 telescope rotated again and waiting for its relaxation after the anti-ice system. 11h: test on new wind direction instrument to replace the burn one. 12:40h: Wind direction monitor system operative again. 13h: Launched observation with EMIR, waiting for a better rellaxation of the telescope for Nika2. Starting project: 104-23, source IRAS23151. Observation script (last 1.6h) splitted in two to allow a new pointing/focus after 50min.

15:00-21:00; Antoine: Finished EMIR observation of project 104-23 IRAS23151. Switched to NIKA2 at ~16H00. DAQ restarted, lost KIDs (a1, a2, a3: 25, 3, 37). Very good pointing-focus-pointing. Did one repetition of PSZ2G083 of project 151-23 (40 mins). Then went to Uranus for pointing/focus + a calib_1scan (scan 74) and a skydip (scan 75). Very good tracking, max. wind speed < 5 m/s and without facing the telescope. The max. wind speed started to rise to ~8-9 m/s when went to NGC7538 for a pointing (scan 77) and another calib_1scan (scan 78; cannot be processed by PIIC-QL). See the plots below:

After that, a different target was tried. Moving to 0355+508 (track, scan 79). According to Grafana -> BluePill Forwarder, a problem appeared with telescope tracking. The pointing scan on 0335+508 (scan 80) cannot be processed. See the screenshot below:

Managed to have good pointing and focus after a while and did one repetition of source WB89-529 for project 106-23. Then at 19h30 operations were stopped because of wind.

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Started a beam map (scan 102, option h: speed 39 arcsec/s) at 21:00 (LT) and the skydip (scan 103) right after the beam map. After the skydip, moved to 0716+714 and tried the focusing, but failed with too high tracking deviations. At 22:30 (LT) suspended the operation due to strong wind. Operation resumed at 00:15 (LT). Wind speed stays below 8 km/s, tau_225 < 0.2, it is fantastic observing condition! Thanks to the stable weather condition, I managed to execute non-stop two whole repetitions (160 min) of project 150-23 on target id307. The weather condition and tracking were super stable during the whole observation.

The sunset at IRAM30m is always amazing!

Feb. 17th, Saturday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: continuing on project 150-23 for half repetition, then pointing (and then pointing again because the previous one didn't show up for a long time). then moved to 153-23. pointing, focus (at UT=3:46, previous one was at about UT=23) and pointing on 1226+023, 2 repetitions on AR2623, then a pointing on 1354+195, then 3 repetitions of AR2747, followed by pointing on 1308+326. General comment: the data reduction is slow, has a delay of a couple of exposures, which reduces the observation efficiency when doing pointing and focus (need to wait the reduction of the backlog, which includes 1-2 observations and the pointing/focus itself, before setting pointing or focus value and run next target).

09:00-15:00; Federico: Pointing and focus on 1308+326, source WB89-040. 8:45-8:55h One of the five focus scan failed. Tried again with the same source. Second attempt was worst, 4/5 scan of the focus failed for wind! 9:20h Moved to another source: 1807+698. Again, 4/5 scan failed. Telescope stopped at 09:30 (LT). Anemometer at the meteo station was not giving consisting result with the manual anemometer at the telescope (at least in the regime with a wind direction from SSE-SSW, a factor ~2 is observed between the two measurements). Due to high wind speed, the telescope was moved to a safe position waiting for better condition (9:30h).

15:00-21:00; Antonie: Started observing at 16h45 UTC, wind ok. Finished observing source WB89-529 for project 106-23, excellent conditions. Switched to project 150-23, but wind increased again. Couldn't get pointing, too much tracking deviation. Operations stopped because of wind at 18h50 UTC.

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Operation started at 21:30 (LT), the wind speed is much lower (<6m/s) and stable. Did a first pointing and focus with 0316+413, and then changed to Uranus for calib_lscan. At 22:05 (LT), switch to project 150-23, started with the pointing again with 0716+714 and finished one repetition (80min) on source id307. At 00:47 (LT), re-pointing again with 0716+714. The beam shape is still quite good (17.19x18.31), so started another repetition without re-focusing. At 01:30 (LT), the wind speed up and triggered the alarm, we waited another four minutes to finish the on-going scan (scan 2) and then suspended the operation and the rest of scans in the queue. For this repetition, only 3/8 scans were finished and likely the last scan was highly affected by the wind. Checked after telescope stop: as much as 7% of records with high tracking deviations on the most recent id307 scans, according to PIIC-QL.

What a clear and sunny day! If there is no wind...

Feb. 18th, Sunday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: wind continues, no observations.

09:00-15:00; Federico: 8:40h: telescope still parked for wind. Operation restarted at 14:45h (LT). First pointing and focus on Uranus. The telescope was stopped (stow position) all the morning in front of the sun, we will attempt a second focus on another source. Kids lost: 26/3/36. Then pointing on source 2037+511, near a secondary calibrator and possible targets for observations. First calib_1scan on NGC7027, a second one on MWC349. Done a second focus on 20378+511, still not so good. Moved to another source for a new attempt: 2200+420.

15:00-21:00; Antonie/Federico: Started observation of WB89-040, project 106. 2/3 Nrounds completed. then moved to 2037+511 for pointing & focus. Focus was not so good likely because of the residual beam distortion linked to the telescope warm-up during the parked time. Curiously, the ambient temperature suddenly rose around 17h (LT). Switched to nikaw-23 account for further refinements on source 0716+714 and then on 0355+508 at a higher elevation, as long as the telescope was relaxing a bit more and a reasonable beam shape was recovered. After that, started observation of WB89-572, project 106-23. Done half of a repetition (PA = 0 and 30 deg). Moved to Uranus for a focus after the sunset. Good focus and FWHM values; done a beam map (scan 82) on Uranus.

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Started the skydip (scan 83) right after the beam map and then got the pointing and focusing with Uranus before moving to the science projects. At 21:10 (LT), started project 150-23 with a pointing on 0836+710, then completed two repetitions on source id321 with great weather conditions. The pointing and focus were stable during the scans. At 02:24 (LT), change to project 153-23, started with the pointing and focus with 1226+023, then followed by two repetitions on AR2623.

Then, here comes our daily pictures of the sunset and telescope. Today, we did not have a picture of the telescope, but we have a movie!

Feb. 19th, Monday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: continuing with 1 repetition on AR2623, pointing on 1226+023, two more repetitions on AR2623. Pointing and focus on 1226+023 (focus has not changed; also tau is constant since 24h!). Moved to project 150-23, pointing on 1044+719, 1.5 repetitions on id386 and pointing again on 1044+719. Switched to project 106-23, pointing on 2037+511, one repetition of WB889-40 (which completes this target) then pointing again. Very stable conditions all the shift.

09:00-15:00; Federico: Started with calibrations, skydip, and focus after the sunrise with nikaw-23 account: 1st pointing on 2013+370 (Scan 68), then 2 calibs on CRL2688 and MWC349 (S69 and S70, respectively), skydip with Scan ID 71. Focus done after the calib because of good precedent focus and for waiting the telescope condition after the sunrise. Focus (S74-78) and pointing (S73) on 2251+158, then started observation of PSZ2G083, project 151-23, at ~10:04h (LT), one repetition. Done a pointing on 2234+282 to check the stability of the beam. We still have a good focus, thus we continue observation of PSZ2G083 (second repetition of the day, 3/6 in total for the source). Changed to nikaw account to check first the geometry of the beam, and repeat focus. pointing/focus on 1641+399 (at 12:00h LT). Telescope not relaxed, and geometry of the beam not satisfying for Nika. Condition suitable for EMIR.

Tau forecast seems worsening, but opacity records are pretty stable...

Changed to EMIR, project 087-23 first. Hard to get a convincing focus, pointing ok. L694-2_off1 observed once (too low at the end of the repetition). Switched to project 104-23. Observations of IRAS23151 finished. Then, NGC7538_IRS1 was observed (the only 45' map required). Last focus with EMIR about 0 mm. In addition, temperature differences of backup structure components suggest that the telescope is reasonably relaxed. Switched to NIKA2 at 19:50. Some problem with crates 1 and 3 cards after DAQ restarting. Cold reboot of suspicious crates. Everything went fine after that. Lost KIDs: 26, 3, 33. Got pointing-focus-pointing on Uranus. Beam shape at 2mm, FWHM = 17.2" x 18.4".

21:00-03:00; Jianhang: Started the shift with beammap on Uranus, option h (scan 207), which took about one hour to finish. At 22:00 (LT), started the project 117-23 on Orion-B. After the first pointing and focus with 0458-020, we launched two repetitions. The quicklook took long time to finish (30min+20min for writing the imbfits and processing), so we started the third repetition directly without pointing correction to save a bit of time. The pointing was launched after the third repetition, and changed to project 151-23. After the pointing and focus with 0754+100, finished two repetitions on source PSZ2G206. At 02:20 (LT), launched another pointing correction with 0736+017, then launched one more repetition, passed to Stefano.

Feb. 20th, Tuesday

03:00-09:00; Stefano: pointing on 0754+10, then moved to project 150-23. Pointing on 1044+719, almost 1.5 repetitions of id386, because at 4:20 UT problems started (BluePill must have been rebooted after getting synchro problems according to PIIC-QL on scan 26; DAQ restarted after that, lost KIDs: 15, 2, 18). At 4:40 UT we suspended regular operations that resume at 6:20 UT analysing the pointing of 1308+326 taken at UT=16:03. Launched 2 repetitions on AR2747.